


sliding doors iii

by ont



Series: mockingbird [12]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: ABO Gender Dynamics, Anal Sex, Angst, Blended family, Canon Compliant, Career Stress, Children of Celebrity, Conflict, Discussion of Abortion, Divorce Trauma, Erectile Dysfunction, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M, Marital Issues, Mental Health Issues, Middle Age, Middle child syndrome, Midlife Crisis, Mild Daddy Kink, Oral Sex, Past Mpreg, Post-Zayn One Direction, Rich Kid Mischief, Rimming, Stepkid/Stepparent Dynamics, discussion of miscarriage, emotional catharsis, ennui, parenting, sibling dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-04 17:40:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 84,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15152315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ont/pseuds/ont
Summary: “Dad,” Mia says, “hypothetically, is it bad to punch someone during Ramadan?”In 2034, the boys deal with the marital, professional and personal struggles of middle age, while their kids start wanting to escape the shadows of their famous parents.





	1. Chapter 1

LOS ANGELES, FEBRUARY 12, 2021

Louis is curled up in a recliner in his man cave, dozing off to an old episode of Gordon Ramsay’s _24 Hours to Hell and Back_ when a small figure appears in the doorway, lit by the flickering light of the TV. It’s Amir in his pajamas and sock feet.

“Hey,” he says blearily, and checks his phone. “What’re you doing up? ‘S’ ten o’clock…”

Amir comes over and climbs up into his chair, settling in his lap and burying his face in Louis’ chest. He’s clutching the little blanket he sleeps with. Louis wraps his arms around him, stroking his dark hair.

“What’s wrong?” he murmurs.

“Bad dream,” Amir says.

“About what?”

“Everyone went away.”

Louis smooths a thumb over his son’s ear. “I’m right here, loves.”

“I know.”

“Is this about your dad?”

He shrugs his shoulders.

“You wanna give him a quick call?”

Amir stills, then nods.

“Yeah?” Louis says, digging his phone out of his pocket. “Alright.”

He rings up Zayn, who takes a while to answer, then says, “Everythin’ alright?” when he does.

“Everythin’s fine,” Louis says. “Sonny boy’s just having his separation anxiety.”

“Ahh, alright… put me on speaker…”

Louis does.

“Amir,” Zayn’s voice crackles over the line.

“Hi,” Amir peeps.

“I’m fine, Louis is fine. We’re right here. Go back to sleep, okay?”

“Okay…”

Louis says his goodbyes with Zayn and sets his phone down, cuddling Amir closer. His pediatrician said the night terrors would fade as he gets used to the divorce, but he isn’t quite free of their grip yet. Mia, for her part, has been acting out at school and home, but at least Louis can treat that with discipline and structure. He can’t do anything for Amir except give him ineffectual reassurances.

Amir’s little fingers fist in his shirt. “I miss Daddy.”

“I know, kiddo.”

Louis misses him too, if he’s honest with himself. He’s been terribly lonely lately. It’s like a respiratory illness, a thick and aching miasma that lives in his chest. Louis wasn’t built to be single, he needs someone to come home to.

“Can I take you back to bed?” he says. “I’ll sit with you ‘til you go back to sleep.”

“No,” Amir says, clinging to him. “Don’t leave. Sleep in my bed.”

Louis laughs. “Your bed is _teeny_.”

“No! You said — you told me it’s a big boy bed!”

“It _is_ , but I’m a grown man, angel. Why don’t you want me to sleep in my own bed?”

“You’ll disappear.”

“No, no no. I won’t.”

“Please,” he begs.

“Okay,” Louis sighs. “But you need to get some sleep, you've got school tomorrow.”

He scoops Amir up and carries him off upstairs, through the empty dark of the house. A sort of itching despair fills him as he does; he wonders how long he’ll have to do this, this single dad thing.

It’s even worse when the kids are with Zayn. He spends all of his time out of the house, hanging with friends, in the studio, flying out to England to go be with his family. It isn’t a home with no one else in it.

Amir lets Louis settle him into bed and then stares up at him as he tucks the sheets around him, his little brow knit, his dark eyes round. “Stay?” he says.

Louis lies down next to him with a groan. He glances over at Mia in her bed across the room, but she’s still sound asleep, clutching a stuffed polar bear. “Stay,” he promises.

Amir lets his eyes close, then, his long lashes fanning to his cheeks. He looks exhausted, like a little night watchman who’s working a double. Louis feels terrible for him. It’s as if he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders at four years old. You don’t have to carry all this, he wants to tell him, you can’t protect us by worrying. You can’t save yourself from heartache by bracing for it. And I’ll never leave you, not willingly.

But he can’t blame Amir for feeling this way. His world has split. His beloved father is elsewhere; only a half hour away, but to a little kid, Zayn might as well be on the moon. No longer right down the hall, there to come in and comfort him, sleepy-eyed, murmuring Urdu to him.

And when he is down the hall, Louis isn’t, which might be even worse. Amir clings to him like the air he breathes — Louis fields plenty of his own ten o’clock phone calls. Sometimes Amir even steals one of Zayn’s phones and dials all by himself, punching in the ten memorized digits with his little fingers, peeping a tearful “Daddy?” into Louis’ ear.

Louis leans in and kisses him on the head. “I’m still here,” he whispers.

Amir relaxes slightly. “Okay,” he whispers back.

 

CALABASAS, OCTOBER 12, 2034

Someone shoves Amir’s bedroom door open, and they all glance up.

It’s Sunday. She’s in jeans instead of jodhpurs for once, and her curly hair is being forcibly restrained by a tight braid, but she looks about as intense as usual.

Amir blows out a ring of smoke at her. “Wanna join us?” he offers, holding out the joint.

“No,” she says. “I’m studying.”

Amir passes it to Evan. “ _That_ sucks,” he says.

“Yeah, so could you guys keep it down?”

Jason, who’s sat on the floor next to Amir’s desk, says, “Hey Sunday,” pretending at a casual tone. He’s fancied her for a while now, even after Amir warned him about the fruitlessness of doing so.

Sunday squints at him and inclines her head slightly. “Hi?”

It’s understandable she’d be confused; Jason has been going to school with them and hanging out with Amir for ten years now, and he’s only started paying attention to her in the last eight months.

“Since when do you care about studying?” Amir says.

“My dad’s new thing is I can’t compete in Young Riders this summer unless I graduate with at least a three oh,” Sunday says. “So I have to bring things up this semester, especially in pre-calc.”

Sunday’s only goal in life has always been to become a member of the U.S. Equestrian Team and go ride in the Olympics. It’s gotten worse lately — she’s like the Terminator, if he were always covered in bits of hay.

Amir shrugs. “I can tutor you if you want.”

She leans on the doorway. “I don’t need you to tutor me.”

“I got a four on the AP Calc test, and I took it as a junior,” he reminds her.

“Yeah, but you’re not a good teacher,” Sunday says. “You get impatient.”

“Uh, no I don’t.”

“You do, actually,” Evan says. Amir shoots him a look.

“Just turn the music down, that’s all.” Sunday turns around and pulls his door shut again.

Amir lifts his watch wrist in the direction of the thumping Bluetooth speakers mounted on the dark blue wall opposite them, and flicks it until he’s turned the music down by exactly five clicks. They’re listening to an extremely obscure English rap group that Amir introduced them to.

Jason takes the joint from Evan. “Soo… does she still not care about anything that isn’t horses?” he says. “Like, guys?”

“I told you, bro,” Amir says, rolling his eyes. “Told you like six times. Don’t bother.”

“Whenever I see her around school, she’s always with the same girls,” Jason says. “Does she party at all?”

“Do we ever see her at parties?” Amir says rhetorically.

“I mean, not really… but she got hot. Does she know she’s hot? You should let her know.”

Amir rolls onto his side and gives Jason a sharp look.

“I mean, don’t _tell_ her,” Jason says, his cheeks coloring. “I don’t mean like in a weird way. You should invite her to Sashrob’s thing next week.”

Sashrob is Sasha Robinson, a friend of theirs and a fellow senior — or would be a fellow senior of Amir’s, if he hadn’t graduated a year early after accumulating a glut of extra credits out of boredom with his private school’s relatively laidback curriculum.

His counselor had given him the option at the beginning of junior year. “You could take a gap year before you go to college, if you want to be the same year as your friends, or you could even go early,” he said hopefully, like Amir being a jailbait college freshman at some random Ivy would be a huge feather in his personal cap.

Amir has agreed to graduate early and take the gap year, mostly because he has no idea what the fuck he wants to do with his life except play the piano and smoke weed, and he didn’t really want to hang around after Mia graduated. As much as he likes his friends, she was half the fun of high school, for him.

“She won’t go,” Amir says. “Sunday doesn’t drink.”

“She doesn’t _drink_?” Evan says, lifting his eyebrows. “Is she a _Quaker_?”

“No, she’s an _equestrian_ ,” Amir says in a lazy imitation of a posh accent. “She’s got this crazy Australian coach who doesn’t let her drink. Or eat cheese.”

“My step-sister isn’t hot,” Jason muses, as if he regrets this. “She’s like fifteen years older than me.”

“Yeah,” Amir says, “‘cos your dad’s fuckin’ ninety.”

Jason’s dad is a stooped little tech mogul who’s on his third wife. Jason’s mum was wife number two. He inherited almost none of her good looks, but at least he got her height, which Amir envies him for. He’s barely the same height as his dads, which isn’t saying much.

“He’s seventy-two,” Jason retorts.

“You should come back to school,” Evan says as he passed the joint back to Amir, who takes a long drag, killing it. He tosses the roach into his trash can. “We had a student gov meeting today, and it’s seriously lame as shit without you. I might quit, honestly.”

“You should have a scandal and resign in disgrace,” Amir says.

Evan snorts. “I know you graduated, but can’t you like, I dunno. Just sit in on classes? The teachers wouldn’t care. You could TA.”

“You just want me to take Latin with you ‘cos you’re failing it.”

“I thought it was gonna be easy,” Evan says. “It’s like… a dead language, right? I thought there’d only be like a couple hundred words.”

Amir chooses not to clown on him for this and lies back against his pillows, looking up at his royal blue ceiling. “Why would I come back?”

“You don’t miss us?”

Amir settles his sock feet on Evan’s lap and gives him a slow, flirty smile. Just when Evan’s light eyes have begun to twinkle with interest, he lets the smile drop and sticks his tongue out at him. Evan shoves his feet away in retaliation.

“I see you all the time,” he says. “I can’t get rid of your asses, actually.”

“Just go off to college already,” Jason says, sounding annoyed. “Go where all the good tail is, go where the good drugs and parties are. Why’re you hanging around here annoying us, for? I thought people used gap years to travel and do cool shit, not be hermits in their dad’s house. Go race cars in Monaco or something.”

“I stay out of charity,” Amir says. “I know how fucking bored you’d all be if I left entirely.”

“Yeah, whatever, dickhead,” Jason scoffs.

“Actually, school’s been pretty boring without you,” Evan mutters.

Amir smiles. It hasn’t surprised him to hear that none of the senior class has stepped up to fill the void. He and Mia both got away with murder their entire time at Thorngate; she was a star soccer player, and he had the excellent grades, which gave them an easy rapport with teachers that allowed them to get away with shit like drawing dicks on chalkboards, intentionally derailing class discussions for thirty minutes at a time, staging obscure political protests in the lunchroom, or crashing the auditions for _The Tempest_ and performing a Dennis and Dee scene from _It’s Always Sunny_ that led to them being kicked out of the auditorium and written up for profanity while their friends and Sunday laughed their asses off in the audience.

They weren’t always goofing off, though. Her senior year, Mia organized a massive improv show that brought every year of the drama students together to raise money for a teacher of theirs who was losing her son to cancer and had to stop working. Amir volunteered himself to play improvisational piano to score the whole thing. The night went off spectacularly — the theater was standing room only, and they raised fifty grand from everyone's rich parents. It’s one of his favorite memories.

No matter what they were doing, Amir always felt like he could do anything when his sister was around; after she committed to go play Division I soccer at UCLA, he realized he was about to lose his mojo. So he figured he could use a year bumming around the house, spending his days practicing piano and going through the college brochures piling up, partying with his friends at night.

“Since you’re doing a gap year,” Jason says, “we could do college together. If I even get in anywhere.”

“You’ll get in everywhere,” Amir says. “Your dad’s a billionaire. Just send him a list of places you want in at, he’ll buy them all astronomy buildings.”

“I think I have to go to Stanford or something,” Evan says glumly. “I already pissed off my parents enough when I got kicked out of Groton. If I don’t do an Ivy, they might let my little brother take over the company.”

“Word,” Jason says. “Amir, let’s go to Stanford with him. You could get in anywhere, right? You said that before.”

Amir squirms on the bed. Every time someone talks to him about college, it feels like a lead weight steadily compresses his lungs until he has to gasp for air. “Wherever,” he says, feigning disinterest.

He had had, at one point, a vague notion of following Mia to UCLA. He could have gotten in easily — Mia managed to, and soccer skills aside, she only had a 3.3 and an 1800 SAT score. But Zayn had soured him on this with comments like, “You can’t follow your sister around for the rest of your life,” and “You could do better, you could go to an Ivy.”

Amir is tremendously afraid of the big black unknown spreading under his feet. He thought that the gap year would give him time to figure out what he wanted, but so far all it’s done is make him feel worse. He’s afraid of college because he knows he’ll never get back what he had at Thorngate — the tiny class sizes, the teachers who knew and liked him, the chance to visibly excel, to party every weekend with all the same people he’s known since he was seven.

He was never quite as confident or commanding as his sister, but that worked in his favor — he was the better politician, always slick-mouthed, well-dressed, sitting in the back of the room laughing with his friends but fast with the right answer when called on. He was easily elected as the junior class president, after running for no particular reason other than to put it on his transcript (Evan was treasurer, and they used to spend meetings trying to flick little pieces of paper at each other without catching the attention of their student adviser).

Amir knows he’ll never get that back if he were a complete unknown at a big fancy college. When Louis took him on a weekend trip to visit Harvard and Yale, they were both so sprawling that Amir got nauseous trying to take it all in. He doesn’t want to disappear.

He always thought he would eventually grow to be like Mia, who was an adult by six years old. She loves being out of the house. She loves all her new friends and her punishing athlete’s regimen. He doesn't know how to live life the way she does.

He lately really envies his parents and step-dads. They have it made: spent five years straight touring and in exchange got minted for life, to be beloved by millions forever no matter what they did after. He could never have that. He figured out long ago that even if your parents are famous, true stardom isn’t something you can aspire to. It’s a lightning strike.

Between all the kids, he’s the only one that’s even musical, although his preference of expression is jazz piano, which isn’t a genre that’s exactly tearing up the Billboard Hot 100. He’s thought about applying to Juilliard, and his counselor suggested it to him on multiple occasions, but he’s equally terrified of being rejected and of putting an entire country between him and his friends and family.

“Hey,” Evan says, breaking the silence, “you guys want food?”

“I want In-N-Out,” Amir says.

“I’m too high to drive,” Jason says.

Amir sits up. “We’ll take the Tesla,” he says, and springs off his bed, grateful to have something to do.

 

*

 

When the boys get back, they play pool basketball for a few hours until the sun’s too low in the sky to shoot properly (or rather, Jason keeps complaining this is the case, then quits in a huff after ten minutes of Evan and Amir splashing water at him and mockingly going, ‘Guys, the sun's in my eyes, shut up, the sun’s in my eyes!’). Evan and Jason sneak through the side gate to Jason’s car so they don’t run into Louis, who’s still narked at them from when they dropped Amir off two hours after curfew (and steaming drunk) a few weeks ago.

They wave goodbye to Amir, who shivers in the dusk air and waits at the fence until they’ve driven down the hill and out of sight.

Back in the house, he can hear everyone else in the dining room — chairs scraping the floor, silverware clattering. Louis must hear the patio door slide shut, because he shouts, “Dinner!”

Amir shrugs his t-shirt on and heads down the hall, poking his head in the door. They’re all there except Sunday, sat around the table and picking at salads. Louis glances up at him and says, “I texted you.”

“Took my watch off, we were in the pool,” he says, and takes a seat next to Max, who comments, “You’re wet.”

Amir squeezes the end of his trunks into his hand so he can flick the residual pool water at his brother. Max laughs, sticks his fingers into his glass of milk and flicks milk in Amir’s face.

“Ooh, little savage,” Amir says proudly, socking Max in the shoulder and wiping his face off with his shirttail.

“Boys, not at the table,” Louis says, but he isn’t very forceful about it. He abandons his salad and gives his salmon a distracted poke with his fork. “Why are you on a war against food lately, Payno?”

“I’m trying to be heart-healthy,” Liam says, glancing sideways at him. “It’s good, I swear.”

Louis lets out a little sigh.

“How was the chlorine today?” Liam says to Amir.

“Too much,” he says. “It was gross.”

“You need to fire that pool boy already,” Louis says. He’s returned to sifting through the salad, like he thinks there might be fried chicken hidden under a leaf of romaine. “I don’t care how nice he is. It’s always either got so much chlorine the kids choke, or there’s a forest growing in there.”

Liam obediently lifts his watch to his mouth and mutters, “Remind me to fire the pool boy,” into it. “He’s more of a pool man,” he adds, picking his fork back up.

“Pool _man_ ,” Louis demurs.

“Where’s Sunday?” Amir says.

“Barn,” they chorus in unison.

“I don’t like salmon,” Patrick declares.

“Aww, since when?” Liam says.

He shrugs.

“There’s potatoes, too,” Liam says. “But finish your salad.”

Their watches all let out the soft chime that means someone’s arrived home. Half a minute later, they hear Sunday coming down the hall.

“You’re LATE,” Max yells. Patrick joins in, until they’re both chanting, “Late, late, late,” like they’re in the audience at WWE.

Liam laughs. “Boys,” he says, “for the love of God.”

They quiet down.

Sunday comes in, changed out of her dirty barn clothes but still sporting the general dust and grime she always has when she’s been with her horse. “Hi family,” she says, crossing the art-covered back wall and squinting as light from the picture window overlooking the backyard hits her in the face.

Louis catches Amir’s eye and mouths at him, _You smell like weed_.

“How?” he exclaims. “I was in the pool!”

“You need to shower afterwards,” Louis says. “I mean, I’d prefer you didn’t, but —“

Amir snorts at the hypocrisy here. Sunday glances up as she takes a seat. “What?”

“Nothing,” Amir says brusquely. She puts her hands in the air and shoots him a look. “You’d prefer I didn’t shower, Dad?”

“Ha-ha. You know what I meant. And please fix your attitude.”

Liam, pretending that he’s paying attention to none of this, says cajolingly to Patrick, “Can you just try a bit of the salmon? It’s good for you.”

“Tastes like paper,” Patrick mutters, but eats some.

Amir tries it. It’s actually pretty good, at least to his more mature palate. Liam did some sort of lemon butter sauce. “What happened to studying?” he says to Sunday, in an effort to divert attention off himself.

She flicks her eyes at him in annoyance. “I finished studying before I went out,” she says.

Liam pokes his tongue into his cheek. “I’d really like it if you cut down to three days a week at the barn,” he says.

“Dad, you don’t get it,” she says. “Everyone I’m competing with left school at, like, fourteen to go on the Medal circuit. I’m already behind.”

“You’re not leaving school,” Liam says, “so, y’know —“

“There are private tutors,” Sunday mutters. “You could hire one to travel with me. I could get my GED.”

“You’re not doing that, and we’re not discussing this at dinner.”

“I just think you’re being a hypocrite.”

“I’m not,” Liam says in an even voice, but Amir can tell he’s annoyed. “I went after my dreams, _and_ I finished school. Barely, granted, but I did. And I’d like you to go to college, I want all of you to go to college. Mia’s gone to college. Amir’s going to college.”

“Is he,” Amir murmurs, drawing a smiley face in the frost on his glass of ice water.

Louis shoots him a look. “Aye, he is.”

“Interesting.”

“Stop mutterin’ nonsense under your breath and eat your dinner.”

“Music and horses aren’t the same thing,” Sunday argues.

“Your mum went to Tisch,” Liam says, like he didn’t hear her.

“Broadway and horses aren’t the same thing, either!”

Amir does his best not to look amused. She took the bait so easily, he can barely believe it.

“Sunday,” Liam sighs. That line he sometimes gets between his eyes has appeared.

Patrick takes this moment to knock his glass of milk over onto his plate. “Oops,” he chirps.

Louis inhales. “I absolutely don’t believe that was an accident,” he says, as Liam gets up and goes in the kitchen, returning quickly with a roll of paper towels.

“Go to your room,” Liam says gently to Patrick.

“Dad!” he exclaims.

“I mean it.” He starts mopping the table. “You’ve been disruptive all day, kiddo. We’re trying to have a nice family dinner here.”

Patrick looks to Louis, incredulous.

“Go,” Louis says. “If you get hungry later, there’s plenty of salmon left over.”

“You’re so _mean_ ,” he shouts, stomping out of the room theatrically.

Liam continues to mop in silence, then piles the sopping paper towels onto the plate and disappears back into the kitchen. Louis rubs his temple and pours himself a glass of wine.

“I find it really hard to believe you had to do calculus in school,” Sunday says to Liam when he returns, wiping his hands off on his jeans.

“Nah, algebra and stats,” he says, sitting back down. “Did you do calculus, Tommo?”

Louis laughs hard at this. “Fuck no.”

“It’s only pre-calc,” Amir says. “And I could help her if she’d let me.”

“You’re a bad teacher!” she exclaims. “You’re so impatient!”

Amir adopts the expression of an innocent victim. “That’s _mean_ , Sunday.”

“Please, you know it’s true.”

“Can I go to our room too?” Max pipes up.

The twins still share a room — at their own request, which Amir finds totally baffling. He loves his privacy, personally. But they’re on a level of closeness that he’s never understood.

Louis laughs. “No, ‘cos then it’s not a punishment, it’s the two of you goofing around together. Eat your food.”

Max resignedly returns to his salad.

“I have a band for you, by the way,” Liam says to Louis.

Louis looks up, cheerful for the first time all dinner. “Yeah? Who?”

“You know my friend Hec? He’s come to the states this past year and hooked up with a band that was already around — unsigned — but since he got with them, they’re sounding _really_ good,” Liam says. “Could be like a Fleetwood Mac thing, you know? I think he’s like — what’s it called?”

Louis grins. “Their X factor?”

“Ha, I didn’t even think. But yeah, exactly.”

“So they’re still unsigned?”

“Nah, I brought them to Capital, but they haven’t got management yet. They’re being cautious about that.”

“Nice,” Louis says. “We should do, like —“

“A listening party?” Liam supplies.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Sounds good. I’ll let him know you’re interested.”

“Thanks, babe.”

They both turn back to their food, then seem to realize at once that their children are still there. “Amir,” Louis says, pointing his fork at him. “Your dad’s back from France on Saturday.”

Amir’s stomach sinks. “Yeah, I know,” he says.

“Alright,” Louis says, seeming surprised at his tone. “Just reminding you.”

“You sure he’s actually back?” Amir snaps without meaning to. “Or is it going to be two extra months again?”

Louis sighs. “Harry had reshoots, kid, they couldn’t help it.”

“Yeah.” Amir looks down at his plate again, suddenly edgy and restless. The sun has gone down behind them, and the mostly glass room has cooled off a lot. He’s shivering in his wet swim trunks. “Can I be excused?”

“Alright,” Louis relents, “I guess no one’s eating dinner tonight.” Amir gets up, and he adds, “Couple more uni brochures came for you.”

“What, like in the mail?”

“Yeah. I put them on your desk.”

Amir doesn’t want to think about any of this. “Okay,” he says, so he can get away, but he plans on throwing them in the trash. He can find all that shit online anyway.

 

*

 

Louis finds him a few hours later, when he’s playing piano in the rumpus room, the screen door to the backyard open so he can let a warm night breeze in. Amir’s only got one light on, a lamp in the corner; the blanket of darkness lets him live a weird little fantasy he has of playing in a hotel lounge, when he’s years older and successful in some way. Maybe he has a bossa nova album out that brought the genre back to the States, or maybe he’s just a famous pianist. Either way, in the fantasy, he’s a highly regarded musician that everyone wants to sleep with. And about two or three inches taller.

Louis perches next to him on the bench. Amir doesn’t stop playing; he’s at that point in the piece where his fingers have become possessed.

“Not sure I like this,” Louis mutters after a minute or so.

“It’s Mahler, you’re not supposed to.”

Louis reaches up and strokes his hair, smoothing it back off his forehead. Amir’s fingers pause, then.

“I know you’re sort of angry with Zayn,” Louis says. “I wish you wouldn’t be, but I get it.”

“It’s fine,” Amir says softly, still looking down at the keys. They blur together in his vision when he stops focusing on them. “His new family takes priority, I got that like six years ago.”

“That ain’t fair to him, and you know it. C’mon.”

Amir doesn’t want to admit why he’s upset with Zayn, because then he’d have to admit how lost he feels lately. “I’ve just wanted to talk to him,” he says. “And I’ve barely been able to, he doesn’t pick up the phone —“

“It’s just the time zones, love. I’ve been telling you to text him instead.”

“I know! I’m not five! I just, like, I have shit I’d like to talk to him out loud about!”

“You know, _I’m_ here,” Louis says gently.

“I know,” Amir mutters.

“You understand why he couldn’t take you guys that summer back then, you know what him and Harry were going through at the time. And it’s the same sort of thing now, he had to support Harry’s career. He didn’t _want_ to leave, he didn’t want to miss Mims going off to uni —“

“He didn’t _have_ to.”

Louis gestures helplessly. Amir plays an ugly D sharp in response.

It’s true that most of his anger at Zayn now is just rehashed anger from what happened seven years ago: Zayn had come to the house and had a long private talk with Louis, who then sat Mia and Amir down and told them that their father would not be taking custody of them for any of their upcoming summer vacation.

Mia was upset, but Amir had been beset by grief, convinced beyond all reason (and despite all reassurances) that they were being edged out to make room for Zayn’s new family with Harry, a belief that was seemingly only confirmed the following year with the arrivals of both his half-sister Marlena, and his sister Toni by adoption.

He didn’t find out until he was fifteen years old that Harry had, at the time, been going through a punishing series of IVF cycles that kept ending in miscarriages, and needed so much of Zayn’s emotional support that Zayn made the somewhat misguided decision to have the kids be Louis’ sole responsibility that summer. They didn’t even mean to end up with two kids — Louis said that they’d given up on IVF and were halfway through the adoption process when Harry got pregnant by surprise.

Amir felt like a shit when he finally heard about this, considering how much animus he had mentally heaped on Zayn and Harry that summer, but all he’d said to Louis was, “Someone could have said something, ‘cos it felt like Dad got married and then just straight-up abandoned us.”

“I know,” Louis said, with guilt. “We fucked that up. I’m sorry. It was just such adult stuff, we didn’t know how to talk to you kids about it.”

The damage was done, though. Even as nice a stepdad as Harry is, and as much as Amir and his dad have in common and as well as they get along, he was never again going to feel like Zayn’s first priority. 

Mia had sympathized, but Amir got the feeling that she had already dispensed with the idea of being doted on back when he himself was born. And anyway, she gets to be the one who has everything besides music in common with Louis, the one went out for school plays as more than a joke, the one who plays soccer.

He didn’t start feeling left out of their dynamic until Mia started high school, and Louis started pushing her to practice around the clock. From then on, Mia started sucking up a lot of his already divided attention: always with him in the backyard taking shots on the regulation-size goal Louis had installed along the treeline when they moved here, talking strategy after dinner, going to Galaxy games together.

Amir knows that Mia’s intense competitiveness is born in part from their dynamic, how they competed for attention as kids, and then how their piano teacher used to have only criticism for her and effusive praise for him until it bothered her so much that she gave up on it entirely. He knows she resents that he’s the one who got the nice singing voice and the perfect pitch that their dads like to brag about, the one who school is so easy for. And Louis has always been supportive of him — buying him whatever he asks for, giving him songwriting advice, staying up until two a.m. so he can have company as he practices an especially mind-bending concerto.

But Louis doesn’t understand his kind of music, has no ear for jazz, and he can’t jump up and down waving a foam finger at a piano recital or pour Gatorade over his head after. Sports are fundamentally communal, where music is fundamentally lonely. The funny thing is, he knows Louis completely understands that, but that doesn’t mean he can do anything about it.

Zayn has at least made a few stumbling efforts to understand jazz, but Amir is starting to become convinced, lately, that he’s a sort of inconsistent person. He’s trying to no longer be as tantalized by Zayn’s spurts of intense interest in his life, because they’re now much more readily interrupted. Usually it’s by something pedestrian (Marlena is falling behind in kindergarten, Harry broke his ankle doing a stunt) but in the case of this summer and fall, by his prolonged absence.

“Mia was bummed he wasn’t there to help move into her dorm,” Amir says, glancing up from the piano. “She didn’t say anything, but she was.”

“I know,” Louis murmurs. “I could tell. He just didn’t think it was worth it flying back. They were in a foreign country, with two young kids… Harry’s schedule was barmy…”

“You don’t have to defend him.”

“He’s a good, involved dad, Amir. Him being a bit thoughtless this summer doesn’t erase eighteen years of him dropping everythin’ to be at your sides when you needed him, alright? So I won’t hear it. You want to see a shit parent? Look at Sunday’s mum. That’s a shit parent.”

“I’ve just wanted to talk to him, is all,” Amir says. "I don’t know what I want to do, next year.”

“Well, you’ve got some time to think.”

Amir hesitates, then says, “Maybe it was stupid to graduate early.”

Louis gets up, stroking Amir’s hair back as he does. “Either way, it already happened, so you’ve got to just go forward.”

“I guess,” Amir says.

“Me and Liam are going to bed,” Louis says, lingering for a moment. “You need anything?”

“Nah.”

“Alright. Love you.”

“Love you too. Night.”

Louis walks away; the heavy door swings shut behind him. Amir drags his finger along the keys, then turns his wrist over and flicks his watch to display on his forearm so he can check his texts.

 

MALIBU, OCTOBER 14, 2034

Their new dishwasher is completely silent.

It’s sort of creepy. Zayn actually leans down next to it and puts his hand up against the stainless steel front to feel for heat, so he can make sure it’s actually running. Once he’s been convinced, he gets to his feet (groaning as his knees crack) and walks out of the dark quiet of the kitchen.

Up at the top of the staircase, light is flooding into the hall from the kids’ room. Zayn starts climbing the stairs; as he gets closer, he can hear Harry’s voice — the funny, affected one he always uses when he reads to the kids at bedtime.

He stops in the doorway and smiles to himself. Harry is cross-legged on the floor, reading _A Wrinkle In Time_ to them for what must be the fifth time. In their individual beds, Marlena and Toni are both sleepily riveted.

“Yo,” Zayn whispers. “Bedtime for daddies.”

Harry puts a hand up without turning around. “Hang on, they love this part.”

“Yeah, don’t stop,” Toni exclaims.

Marlena, despite that she’s clearly dozing off, nods with gusto.

“Alright,” Zayn whispers. “I’m off to bed, though. Night, loves.”

“Night,” they chorus.

He heads back into the hall and heads back toward their room, checking his watch as he does. He texted Amir and Mia several hours ago that they had landed safely, and gotten a thumbs up emoji from each in response, but when he texted Amir separately asking if he wanted to come spend Sunday with them, he got a read receipt and no response.

Still nothing. Zayn pads into their room in sock feet and slips his watch off, leaving it on the bureau. He’ll give Amir a call tomorrow — he attributes the feeling of foreboding that’s gathering in his gut to jet lag and general anxiety.

It’s about ten minutes before Harry says goodnight to the girls and comes down the hall. He goes straight into the bathroom, and he’s in there for ages; Zayn assumes he’s just doing his nighttime ministrations; he hears the familiar clatter of products, and the sink running. Harry’s singing over the sound of the water, the sound making a pleasant echo. _Would you stay if she promised you heaven? Will you ever win?_

Zayn settles back against the pillows, then, because Harry rarely wants to fool around after he’s washed his face. He hits the panel on the side of the bed, bringing up a translucent hologram display, and flicks through the channels until he gets to the news.

Harry completely surprises him by swanning out of the bathroom in a bright red silk robe that makes him look like a slash of lipstick against the ivory and silver decor of their bedroom. He comes closer, smiling at Zayn; his hair is tousled and curly, and he’s got makeup on. Gold is smeared on his brow bone, and disappears into smoky lids. His lips are shiny and baby pink.

He tosses the robe off and kneels on the bed expectantly. He’s wearing lingerie, a black lacy thong that doesn’t quite contain his cock, which is hard and poking out the side. Matching garters, too, that end halfway up his thighs and are hooked to the thong.

“Hi,” Harry purrs.

“Hi?” Zayn says in surprise. “I thought —“

Harry collapses onto the bed and crawls over to him, kissing him hard on the mouth. His lips are sticky, but they taste good. Sweet.

“Shh,” he murmurs, drawing back and very tenderly biting Zayn on the lip. “Don’t think too hard.”

His hand peels the covers back off of Zayn and slips into his boxers, wrapping around his soft cock.

“Oh, babe,” Zayn sighs. “Look —“

“No, lemme try, okay?” Harry flicks his eyes up at him. They have a wounded Bambi quality. Zayn relents.

Harry shifts over on the bed and lays alongside him, splayed out so Zayn can see how the thong disappears inside his arse crack. His long fingers work, skilled but lazy, as he plays with Zayn.

Nothing happens, though. Zayn gets aroused, and blood pulses weakly to his crotch, but the best they can get him is to half-mast. Harry takes him in his mouth, and the sight of his flaccid penis disappearing between Harry’s frosty pink lips just makes him softer. Harry takes him back out and jerks him a bit more frantically.

“You’re not starting a lawnmower,” Zayn reminds him.

Harry heaves a sigh. “Is it _me_?”

“No!”

He rolls Zayn’s cock between his palms like clay. “You should see a doctor.”

“Mate, I don’t wanna get into this.”

“It’s been happening since France…”

“We’ve got enough to be gettin’ on with, alright? Gonna have to get the kids adjusted back in school after the term’s already started —“

“I’m sorry!” Harry exclaims. “I didn’t think I’d have a month of reshoots. They’re only six, it’s not like they’re halfway through secondary —“

“‘S’fine, I was just saying.”

“But that’s why I want to have sex, I wanna have time to connect, just us...” Harry looks wan and rejected. Under his makeup, the dark circles and puffiness of overworked exhaustion are obvious. He’s still holding Zayn’s limp cock, which looks about as ridiculous in his hand as a rubber chicken would.

“Look,” Zayn says gently, “you haven’t got to, like, do all this kabuki for me.”

Harry laughs, but he looks somewhat hurt. “Do you not like it?”

“No, I do… but this isn’t ‘cos I’m not attracted to you.” Zayn reaches out and wipes a smear of eyeshadow off his cheekbone. “I like you as you are.”

“But you can’t get hard for me,” Harry rasps.

“I can’t get hard for anythin’,” Zayn says. “I ‘aven’t had a real hard-on in a month.”

He hates admitting to that, it makes him feel like an absolute failure. But he’s aware that as a known past cheater, he has the odious responsibility of heading off any suspicions Harry might have that he’s been stepping out on him.

“It’s been ten years, is all,” Harry murmurs. “I wouldn’t blame you if you were starting to get restless.”

“I’m not. What, are you?”

“Nah, nah… I just wanted to make you feel good.”

“I know. Why don’t you get out of that thong, there, lemme make you feel good?”

Harry presses a little kiss to the top of Zayn’s sad cock and slides up the bed to cuddle next to him. Zayn moves out of his way, then rolls him over onto his stomach.

“Oh,” Harry says. He sounds like he’s smiling.

Zayn hooks a finger in the panties and pulls them down off his arse. “You get cleaned up for me?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

“Why?” Harry murmurs into the bed. “You wanna eat my arse?”

“Uh-huh.” Zayn presses a kiss to the peachy, well-muscled flesh of one cheek. “I do.”

“Aw, you’re so gross,” he says with delight.

Zayn slips one leg off the bed and leans forward to snatch the bottle of weird melon-flavored lube Harry picked up in Japan, then drizzles some onto his fingers and starts teasing Harry’s arsehole, massaging him. Harry lets out a choked little noise.

“I want you to be quiet for me,” Zayn says, because if he can’t fuck Harry he might as well boss him around. “I want you to be a good boy. Good and quiet.”

Harry whimpers, but stills. Zayn leans his head down and kisses his arse cheeks some more, letting his short beard brush against the sensitive skin there, then flicks his tongue over his hole.

Harry twitches like a horse shaking off a fly.

“Are you hard?” Zayn whispers, sliding his hand under Harry’s side and grabbing hold of his stiff, weeping cock where it’s pressed against their silky bedsheets. “Did you get hard putting those panties on? Doin’ your makeup for me?”

Silence.

“You can say yes.”

“Yeah,” Harry sighs. “I did.”

That’s all Zayn wanted to hear; he nuzzles into Harry’s arse crack and starts tonguing him with obscene abandon. Harry tries not to moan and ends up instead making desperate, huffy noises against the pillow that are somehow hotter than a moan would be. Zayn’s cock actually pulses a few times, though it never rises to the challenge.

Zayn feels Harry’s body shudder like it does when he’s close to coming and coaxes him with longer, slower flicks of the tongue, rubbing his beard hard against Harry’s skin so it’ll burn tomorrow. He flicks his thumb back and forth over Harry’s weeping tip, using the rest of his hand to stroke slowly up his shaft. Harry lets out one more choked sound and comes all over the bed.

Zayn sits up and rolls him back over. Harry’s cheeks are flushed red, and his eyes are large and wet.

“Hi love,” Zayn murmurs.

“Are you still not hard?” Harry says in a hoarse voice.

Zayn, who knows he isn’t, rather pointlessly gropes at his dick in his boxers. “Nah.”

Harry does a wan little nod. He’s a mess: panties half-off, garters loose and bunching on his thighs, lip gloss smeared across his cheek and semen all over his stomach.

“It’s got _nothing_ to do with you,” Zayn reminds him.

Harry sighs. “Brush your teeth so I can kiss you.”

“Yeah, love.” He leans down and nuzzles into his neck before he goes. Harry reaches up and strokes his hair.

He considers, while brushing, if he hadn’t been a little rougher with Harry than normal just now — but Harry likes that in small doses, and anyway, he _knows_ it’s emasculating for Zayn when he pushes this whole hard-on issue.

Zayn spits and returns to the bedroom, where Harry’s clapped the lights off and is sitting on the edge of it, slowly working the makeup off his face with a wipe from an open container sitting on the bedside table.

Zayn stumbles on something in the dark; he looks down, and it’s a stuffed lion one of the kids left in their room. He kicks it aside and makes his way over to Harry, taking the wipe from him and finishing the job.

Harry sits in patient silence with his eyes closed as Zayn works him over. When his face is dewy and clean, he leans over and kisses Harry on the nose.

Harry laughs. His eyes spring open. “Bed?”

“Yeah, I’m zonked,” Zayn says, and climbs over him to take the left half of the bed like usual, taking care to avoid the wet spot. When he’s settled in and curled up on his side, Harry wraps around him like an octopus, snaking his arms under Zayn’s.

“I’ve missed you, is all,” he murmurs.

“Missed me?”

Harry mouths at the shell of his ear. “‘S’felt a little distant between us lately… Dunno… You haven’t felt that?”

“You were gone filming all day,” Zayn reminds him. “For like five months.”

“I know, I’m sorry! But I had days off, and I came home every night…”

Zayn is quiet. He hasn’t wanted to admit that it really bothered him off to be stuck in their rented chateau with the kids all summer, trying to entertain them, bringing them by the set and waiting around endlessly for Harry like some groupie. That — plus the fact that he’s got nothing going on in his own career right now — really started to chap his arse by a few weeks in. But saying so to him would make Zayn sound like a dickhead who can’t sacrifice or compromise, and would wound Harry, besides, and he never feels as low as when he wounds Harry.

“It’s fine,” he murmurs. “We’re home now, yeah? It’s all back to normal. So don’t worry about it.”

“Alright…”

Zayn laces their hands together and brings Harry’s across his chest, squeezing it. “Love you.”

Harry kisses his neck. “Love you too.”

 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES, OCTOBER 15, 2034

“Tell me it’s a bad idea to skip my eight a.m. tomorrow,” Brynn moans.

Mia rolls her desk chair across their dorm room to Brynn’s bed. She’s lying atop her purple sheets with a dolphin pillow over her face that’s muffling her voice; Mia snatches the dolphin and whaps her in the chest with it.

“Ow!” Brynn exclaims, laughing. “You asshole…”

“Don’t you dare skip,” Mia says, rolling back to her desk and flicking through her email without actually reading the subject lines. “Isn’t our Monday eight a.m. freshman seminar? You can’t skip, I need someone to talk to.”

Brynn sits up. “Please,” she groans, “ _you_ skip it half the time and leave me sitting next to that kid who looks at weird porn on his laptop in class!”

“I’m trying to skip less,” she says. “I have to keep a three oh going.”

“That’s not that hard.”

“Theoretically, but I have practice four days a week, and I’m also a dumbass. It’s my easiest class, so.”

“I don’t think you’re a dumbass,” Brynn says. “I think you have ADD. Your organizational skills scream ADD to me.”

Mia rolls her eyes. Brynn, a psychology major, has already diagnosed almost everyone she’s met at UCLA with a mental disorder. “Either way, I need to start going.”

“You can sit with your teammates,” she suggests.

Mia turns back to her. “There’s only four freshmen on the team, and the only one who’s in our section is Amanda, who you _know_ I don’t like.”

“Well, someone from our floor then.”

Mia grins. “Maybe weird Tanya.”

Brynn makes a face.

“Did you know she collects Polynesian sauce from Chick-fil-A? She has like five hundred packets stashed under her bed, Christina told me.”

“ _Why-y_?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Mia says, laughing. Her watch beeps, and she glances down: dorm security is asking her to verify Amir’s identity. The photo they sent has him sticking his tongue out. She laughs and presses ‘ _I accept this guest_.’ “Alright, my little brother just got here.”

Brynn raises her eyebrows, looking mischievous. “Wait, your hot brother? The musician?”

“What d’you mean, my _hot brother_ — ew, stalker, have you been going through my Insta?”

“Oh, _sorry_ ,” she says. “I’ll just pretend I’m blind.”

“Do _not_ act like that in front of him, you’re gonna give him an even bigger ego,” Mia warns.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be on my best behavior.”

Mia gets out of her chair and collapses onto her own bed so she can lace up her high-tops. “D’you want me to bring you back anything?”

“Are you going to Starbs?”

“Probably, yeah.”

“Um…. maybe a croissant?”

“Got it,” Mia says.

Brynn taps her watch a few times, then flicks her wrist at Mia’s head. Her own watch lights up: _Brynn McKenny just sent you $3.00 through ApplePay._

“Oh my God, it’s just a croissant,” Mia says. “I could have gotten you.”

“Sorry,” she says, mock-repentant, “some of us who aren't millionaires understand the meaning of three bucks —“

“If you don't shut up, I’m gonna pay you back double,” Mia says, laughing and raising her wrist mock-threateningly.

There’s a knock on their open door. They both turn to see Amir leaning in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest. He’s dressed in all black, and looks out of place next to the white cinderblock walls and plain furniture. “That’s a little rude, Mimsy,” he drawls.

“Fuck off,” Mia says, smiling at him. “So, you finally get to see my room with all my stuff in it.”

Amir surveys it. “It looks good,” he says sincerely. “I still really like the view.”

Mia turns and glances out the window, which overlooks the lush treetops of campus, and in the distance, the glittering skyline of Los Angeles. “Yeah, it’s not bad.”

Amir turns to Brynn, flicking his eyes over her. He’s clearly smelled blood in the water. “Is this your famous roommate? ‘Eight shots’ McKenny?”

Brynn lets out a breathy laugh. “My name’s Brynn, actually.”

Amir gives her a lazy little wave. “Hi Brynn.”

She laughs some more, like someone’s pumping nitrous into the room.

“You good?” he says.

“Good, good,” she says.

“Good to hear.”

 _Hear_ is one of those words that comes out a little English when they say it — Brynn clearly notices this, because she goes, “I like your accent.”

Amir smiles at her.

Mia lifts an eyebrow. “I have the literal same accent.”

“It sounds different on him.”

“Alright, let’s go get coffee,” Mia says, getting to her feet and shepherding Amir out into the hall.

“Bye Eight Shots,” he calls coquettishly over his shoulder.

Mia slings an arm over his shoulder. “You’re a little shit.”

“What?” he says, feigning innocence.

She leads him into the elevator and presses the ground floor button. “Don’t flirt with my roommate.”

“Trust me, I’m not interested,” Amir says, leaning against the stainless steel wall. He’s always cool-boy leaning on something these days, like his spine doesn’t fully work anymore.

“I know,” she says, “which makes it even worse.”

They stop on the next floor down; her friend Mick shuffles in with a basket of laundry.

“Hey hey,” Mia says to him.

“Hey,” he replies. “You going to Steph’s party on Friday?”

“Yeah, probably,” she says. “I’ll be late, though, I have two-a-days on Fridays.”

“Fuck,” Mick says. “Those should be illegal.”

“Oh, I fully agree.”

Amir is listening to all of this with a kind of wistful expression on his face.

“Mick, this is my brother,” Mia says, nudging him. “Amir.”

“Hey, man, nice to meet you,” Mick says. “I see the resemblance.”

“Wo-ow,” Amir says drily, “we just met and you’re already insulting me?”

Mick laughs hard at this while Mia kicks her brother in the leg. He gets off on the third floor, waving at them.

“I wanna go to college,” Amir says, after the doors have shut again, in that softer and more emotive voice he only uses around her.

Mia reaches up and smooths his hair back off his face without thinking about it. “So go.”

Amir shrugs. “I kinda wanted to come here...”

“Sure,” Mia says. “If you want. I just feel like there’s so much more out there for you… You’re really smart. I don’t want you to regret what you pick.”

He nods, but looks slightly deflated.

“You could go somewhere far away and cool,” she says. “You could go to like, _Oxford_ , y’know? I mean, UCLA’s a good school, but I only came here because I made the team.”

“And Louis would’ve killed you if you didn’t stay close enough to visit.”

She laughs. “That too.”

Amir says, with a tinge of jealousy, “I think he really misses having you around.”

“I know.” She clears her throat. “Y’know, if you come here, you’re gonna have to find a way to let Brynn down gently.”

“Yeah, we wouldn’t wanna disappoint Brynn,” Amir says, laughing.

“We really don’t, she's the only person in my friend group who has a fake,” Mia jokes.

He shrugs. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Y’know, I like Julliard for you. Miles Davis went to Julliard.”

“I _know_ Miles Davis went to Julliard, Jesus.”

“Well, excuse the fuck out of me.”

He laughs again. The elevator doors spring open.

“You’ll figure it out,” Mia echoes, and starts leading him to the campus Starbucks.

 

*

 

Mia takes Amir to a shady bench under the coral trees, the spot where everyone smokes weed, and rolls a joint for them while he eats the muffin he bought.

“You’re so messy,” she mutters, when he has to brush crumbs off his thighs for the fifth time.

“‘Scuse me,” Amir protests. “You’re the one getting weed everywhere.”

“I haven’t done this in a while!”

She picks up her lighter to sear the joint. Amir glances at someone who’s walking past.

“Guys here are better-looking than the girls,” he says under his breath.

Mia laughs. “I know, I’ve noticed. Here.”

He takes the joint from her and lights it, taking in a drag. “You’re contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” he says, exhaling.

“Whatever, you’re close enough to eighteen.”

Amir hands the joint back to her, then looks the other direction, out at the quad, where people are laughing through a game of Frisbee. “Was it hard to meet people, when you first got here?”

“What d'you mean? Like friends?”

“Yeah.”

“Not really,” she says. “I had the team, and we’d been practicing all summer, so I already knew some upperclassmen… and I’ve made friends with the girls on my floor, and the guys below us. I got lucky with Brynn, that we get along and she’s not a weirdo.” She takes a drag. “Are you seriously worried about that? You’ve always had friends, people love you.”

“Yeah, but I don’t meet people the way you do,” he says. “Like, just walk up to people. For me, people just like…” He does a sort of hilarious hand gesture, like he’s letting a bird fly out of his hands. Mia giggles. “ _Appear._ ”

“You draw people in,” she says, handing him the joint. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

They fall quiet for a moment as a group of loud frat boys ambles by, shouting amongst themselves. Amir gives them some side-eye.

“Yeah, but like, what if I go to Juilliard or somewhere like that where I don’t know anyone,” he says, “and everyone there’s smart, and everyone there’s cool, and no one notices me.”

“No, there’s too many theater kids there for that to happen,” Mia says. “Theater kids are not cool, trust me, I did theater.”

“But you know what I mean, like what if no one goes out of their way to link up with me, and I don’t know how to like, get in with people? And what if I don’t even get in in the first place, for real? ‘Cos you’re all just assuming that I would.”

The words tumble out of Amir in a rush. It’s clear this has been weighing heavily on his mind.

“None of that would happen, I promise,” Mia says. “Why do you always make up these crazy scenarios that straight-up aren't going to happen?”

He shrugs. “I dunno. Dad gets it. Zayn, I mean. I’ve been wanting to talk to him about it, but…”

Mia fiddles with the joint, then glances around, down the wide shady promenade and then out across the quad to their right. She doesn’t see anyone, but for some reason — maybe because of the topic change — she has the prickles she gets down the back of her neck when there’s paparazzi lurking nearby. She doesn’t want them to catch Amir smoking underage.

“Let’s go somewhere more private,” she says, shoving her joint papers back in her bag and tossing it over her shoulder.

Amir looks surprised, but follows her obediently.

 

*

 

She leads him into the forest that fringes the edge of campus, onto a footbridge buried amidst the lushest part of it that overlooks Stone Canyon Creek. In the middle of the bridge, she sits down with her back to the railing, and he sits next to her.

Mia starts rolling another joint. He watches her hands in silence as she works.

“You were saying something about Dad?” she says. “Sorry, I just get edgy sometimes. You know, I’ve had those couple of weird run-ins on campus, paps and stuff…”

“Nah, I know. I get it.”

The worst incident so far had happened in September, when someone sold a photo of her playing beer pong at a party to TMZ, which led to her almost being kicked off the team on suspicion of drinking. They’re supposed to stay dry, and she does; she sticks exclusively to legal weed. She had to cry and plead with her coach, and was finally let off the hook on the basis of the fact that she had a Diet Coke can in her hand instead of a beer. When she found out who sold the photo, she sent him a blistering Facebook message and got only a “sry :/” in return.

“I’m just annoyed at him,” Amir says. She hands him the joint, and he cups his hand against the breeze as he re-lights it. Underneath them, the creek is burbling so loudly that it sounds fake, like a recording from one of those sleep noise machines. “Like, be gone for five months, fine, but he was so hard to get on the phone, and like, totally useless whenever I did —“

“I think he’s been really stressed,” Mia says. “Like having some kind of mid-life crisis. I mean, he’s been raising kids for… however old I am? Eighteen years.”

“So’s Louis, though,” Amir says.

She shrugs. “But he’s more self-sacrificing than Zayn.”

Amir laughs and hands her the joint. “Where d’you get all this stuff from?”

“I’ve actually been going to counseling here,” she confesses. “I was getting stressed from my schedule.”

His eyebrows jump a little. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Look, it’s just once a week. Don’t tell anyone.”

He lifts his pinky; Mia chuckles and pinky swears with him.

“Anyway, you know how much Dad loves you,” she adds.

“Do I?” Amir mutters.

“Yeah! Are you kidding? You’re the musical prodigy, the genius, you’re his precious little son in his sea of girls. Anyway, he’s been gone before. I don’t even mean when him and Harry were miscarrying, or whatever — he’s toured twice, and he was gone for a while then.”

“Yeah, but — d’you remember, like, when we were like fourteen, and he took Harry and the girls on tour, and I asked him if you and me could fly out to a few dates, and he was like, nah, focus on school?”

“I mean, they _had_ to bring the girls, they were three years old.” Mia ashes on his jeans; he flicks the ash back at her. “I get that you’ve felt a little usurped.”

“How am I not gonna feel usurped? Especially lately, it really feels like he thinks you and me are like, done now, like we don’t need him anymore and he can just focus on his new kids.”

“I mean, even if that was true, which I don’t think it is — I sort of _don’t_ need him? I’ve missed him, but, like — I dunno. I’m out of the house now. It’s whatever. A lot of my friends here only see their parents on breaks.”

“Okay? Good for you? You and me aren’t the same person.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Amir looks up at her, then. “Why are you never as disappointed by this stuff as I am?”

“I get disappointed by him too! Look —“ Mia wants to bite her tongue, then, but sometimes she just can’t help it, words just pour out of her. “There’s shit I know that you don’t.”

Amir double takes. “What? What does _that_ mean?”

Hot regret flames in her throat. “Never mind. Never mind.”

“You can’t say that and not tell me.”

“It’s nothing, it’s whatever. Go back to what you were saying.”

“You don’t know shit,” he says, very obviously baiting her.

“Just forget it, seriously.”

Amir squints at her, but doesn’t pursue it further. “Dad wanted me to come over to theirs today,” he says. “Since they’re back.”

“Yeah? Why didn’t you go? It’s been five months.”

He shrugs. “I’d rather see you.”

“So you’re punishing him?”

“I’m not allowed to miss you? Nice.”

“I _know_ you miss me, dumbass,” Mia says. “I miss you too, I blocked off a whole afternoon to hang out with you. But I kinda feel like you’re punishing him.”

“Maybe I am,” Amir says, and coolly blows out some smoke. “He can wait around for me for once.”

Mia has nothing to say in response. They smoke together for a while, passing the joint back and forth in a perfect rhythm. Birds sing and flit back and forth in the treetop canopy overhead.

“How’re Dad and Liam?” she finally says.

“Fine,” Amir says. “Busy, I guess.”

“What about the twins?”

“Fine.” He passes the joint back over. “Busy with basketball.”

“Sunday?”

“She’s fine. Been fighting with Liam.”

“Right. She texted me about dinner the other night.”

“So that’s tense, I guess. And Dad’s been keeping a close eye on me.”

“Yeah, ‘cos you keep breaking curfew.”

“It’s a stupid curfew. I already graduated.”

“You’re still seventeen.”

“What are you, my third parent?”

“Yeah,” Mia says. “I am. You know, he’s probably also noticed how weird you've been acting, lately.”

“Have not,” Amir mutters, scowling.

“Please, you totally have.”

“I’m just, like… I dunno.”

She waits for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. He looks down at the joint between his fingers, twirling it, seeming lost in thought.

“What did you mean about Dad?” he finally says, flicking his gaze up at her. “Zayn, I mean… What you said earlier, you know things. What does that mean?”

Mia lets out a long exhale. She really wishes she hadn’t broached the subject, but now that she has, the thought of sharing this secret with the only other person who could possibly feel the hurt of it the way she has — it’s so tantalizing.

But he’ll take it badly. He’s always idolized Zayn. This hurt he’s carrying around is because of the pedestal he put Zayn on. She doesn’t want to put a massive axe strike in its foundation.

“I don’t want to tell you,” she says.

“No, no way,” Amir says, and leans forward, trapping her gaze. “You can’t just say that and not tell me. How bad is it?”

“I don’t want to say!”

“What, like — Mia, seriously, just tell me.” He sounds anxious, now. “You’re freaking me out, like he did something properly shitty.”

“Like what?”

“Like he’s got a love child somewhere? I dunno.”

“No, no, it’s not like that.”

“Then what?” She remains silent, and he heaves a massive exhale. “Seriously, treat me like an adult, just tell me… you’re not the only one who can handle adult shit.”

That’s what gets her. “Fine,” Mia snaps. “If you think you can handle it, then… alright.”

Amir leans back against the railing, studying her, his eyes almost a feline gold in the low light.

“Remember at the beginning of this year, when I wanted to look into petite modeling, and Dad took me to meet that guy, that handler, who he knew from Adidas?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. Well.” Mia finds between the weed and nerves, her mouth has gone dry. She picks up her latte cup and drains the dregs before forging ahead. “Um… we met him at this restaurant, and he gets totally bombed at the bar before dinner. Dad offered to buy his drinks, and when he went to close out, this guy, Derrick, he’s like, ‘Your dad’s such a good dude, I still can’t believe Zayn did that to him.’ And I went, y’know, _what_? And he was like, ‘You really don’t know? Oh, I shouldn’t tell you.’”

Amir’s jaw has gotten very tight.

“So I begged him,” she says, “and he said that Zayn cheated on Dad with a model.”

His face drops.

“It was this guy who worked with Derrick, once, and told him all about it, I guess. He was proud of the fact that he bagged Zayn Malik, and wrecked his marriage —“

“No, that’s bullshit,” Amir spits. “There’s no way that happened.”

Mia swallows. “It did,” she says. “I asked Aunt Lottie, and she refused to say anything, which basically confirmed it. She even asked me to not bring it up with Dad, why would she say that if it wasn’t true?”

“No, fuck that,” Amir says, clearly angry now. “Why would he do that?”

“He cheated _with_ Dad, Amir! He had a baby on his fiancée, and he cheated before that! You _know_ that! He was an alcoholic!”

“I don’t care!” he shouts, getting to his feet and walking away from her. “It’s still bullshit!”

“It’s why they got divorced! It’s why Dad left him!”

“According to _who?_ ”

“Put two and two together! Remember when they got separated, and he went back to rehab? Why do you think that happened? Or d’you _not_ remember that, ‘cos it really seems like you were too young to remember the worst shit that I do, but you always want to act like I’m making this stuff up, or something —”

Amir ducks his head, swiping at his cheek with his shoulder. She realizes, then, that tears are running down his face.

“Wait,” Mia says, “don’t _cry_ , Jesus. I’m sorry. C’mere.”

He doesn’t, though. He stays standing, clearly working overtime to get ahold of himself, sniffling and half-turned away from her. She wants badly to comfort him, but she knows that’s probably the last thing he wants.

“I don’t fucking believe you,” he chokes out.

“Why would I lie about this? Wallah, Meer!”

Amir’s face drops.

“Look, it was just once. Or that’s the impression I got. I don’t think he had, like, an affair...”

He doesn’t respond to this. There’s only the sound of the water below and the birds overhead; underneath it, the hum of crickets chirping.

“I’m sorry,” Mia says. “I know you always kinda wanted them to get back together…”

“That’s not why I’m upset!”

“Are you okay? Seriously.”

“I’m fine,” Amir snaps. “I’m just, like, processing, can I ever have a second of space?”

Mia puts her hands up.

“Why would you tell me this?” he says hoarsely.

“I guess so you could have some perspective on things, and maybe take him off that pedestal you have him on! I mean, it’s been really hard for me since I found this out, to not be able to talk about it to anyone, especially you! I didn’t want to hear it either… it was honestly sort of a relief for me when they left for France, ‘cos I kept feeling sick every time I looked at him —”

“ _Stop!”_ Amir bellows at her, then drags in a breath and smooths his hair back off his face. One tear remains suspended on his cheek, not falling. “I wanna get out of here,” he says. “I have shit to do at home.”

“What do you possibly have to do?” Mia says. “You graduated.”

“I have shit. Chores. Whatever.”

“Amir —”

“I can’t think about this anymore,” he says. “Just, like. Please. I can’t. I’m not like you, alright, I don’t always want to talk and talk and talk.”

Mia gets to her feet, picking up her bag and the empty latte cup. She approaches him tentatively, then rises on her tiptoes and wraps her arms around him. She's still not used to him being taller than her, even though it's been a couple years.

He buries his face in her neck, sniffling.

“I’ll walk you to your car, okay?” she whispers, patting him on the back.

“Alright…”

 

*

 

He zones out the entire drive home.

The Tesla is roomy and designed solely for self-driving, more like a Metro compartment or a living room than a car. It has a big sunroof. Amir lays back across one of the bench seats and stares up at the cloudless sky, listening to The Bad Plus with the volume so loud he can feel every note in his jawbone. 

His groupchat with his boys is blowing up, making his watch light up on his wrist every few seconds. It’s all just jokes, memes and bullshit, nothing of substance. Ashton is saying he’s going to play Edward Fortyhands at Sasha’s party, but Jason says no, he has to be part of the Wizard Staff game they’re planning.

Amir wishes, for once, that his friends were more mature, less rich, less detached. If he’s honest with himself, the person he actually confides in most is Mia. Failing her, Zayn. And they’re the two people he least wants to talk to right now.

The car smoothly sails itself into the driveway and rolls to a stop. Amir hears his brothers out by the basketball court on the side of the house, yelling to or at each other.

He lies there for a little while longer. His face feels puffy and strange from crying.

Outside, it’s still a beautiful day. The sun hasn’t quite gone down below the trees yet. Amir appears around the side of the house, and the twins glance up in unison. Patrick pelts the basketball at him.

“Ameeer,” he says. “Play two-on-one with us?”

Amir doesn’t catch the ball; he lets it bounce off the brick wall beside him and then stops it with his foot as it rolls by. “Alright,” he says, palming it and starting to dribble. Max grins and rushes up to guard him.

Amir stares him down, edging around him. Max makes unflinching eye contact. He’s intimidating, for a ten-year-old. Burlier than Patrick, plus he’s got those striking, husky-like mismatched eyes: one is brown, the other almost entirely blue, with a slim ring of brown around the pupil.

Amir shoots and misses. Patrick snatches it up instantly, then passes to Max, who has jogged back toward the hoop and tosses it in for an easy lay-up.

“Alright,” Amir says, laughing, “you’re not fucking around, I get it.”

The three of them play until it’s dusk out. Amir isn’t particularly good, but that’s fine, because he’s nearly a foot taller than both of them.

They’ve given up on playing and are in the middle of an armpit fart contest when Liam appears from the backyard, dirty like he’s been gardening. He starts laughing at the ridiculous tableau in front of him, and Max and Patrick run to their father, hollering, “Get him!”

They tackle Liam into the grass, only making him laugh harder. He rolls around with them like a bear with his cubs, wrestling them and tousling their hair. Watching this makes a lump rise in Amir’s throat.

Liam eventually stands up despite the better efforts of his sons and heads over to the court with them on his heels. He puts his hands up; Amir grabs the basketball and passes it to him.

Liam takes a lazy shot and misses. All of them chuckle at this, including him, and then he turns back to Amir. “Hey, you okay?” he says gently, cocking his head.

Max and Patrick glance curiously up at Amir. Amir nods.

“Okay,” Liam says, although it’s clear he doesn’t believe him. “How was your visit, how’s Mims?”

“She’s fine. Busy.”

“Good, good to hear,” he says cheerfully. “Alright... if it suits everyone, I’m gonna go get cleaned up, and then toss some steaks on the grill?” He looks down at the twins, who are clinging to his waist. They nod in unison.

“Steak’s fine,” Amir says. “Where’s my dad?”

“In his office,” Liam says. “Had a lot of paperwork, today.”

 

*

 

“Come in,” Louis calls when Amir knocks, “but if you fucked up your iPad again, I swear to you I’m not buying — oh, hey,” he says, when Amir opens the door. “Sorry, thought you were Max.”

“No,” Amir says, coming into his office and sitting cross-legged on the floor, between a guitar and a box of files with HARD COPIES - CONTRACTS ‘32-33 written in sloppy print on the side. “I just got back.”

“How was it?”

“Fun,” Amir lies.

Louis turns in his swivel chair, taking his glasses off. His monitor has some complicated-looking spreadsheet program on it. “How’s she doing?”

“Good,” he says. “Honestly. Seems like college suits her.”

Louis smiles wistfully. “Yeah, I think so too... You okay?”

Amir huffs a laugh. “Liam asked me the same thing.”

“You just look sad, love.”

He is sad, looking at Louis, and a bit ashamed of himself. He suddenly feels really guilty for every stupid fight they’ve had in the last few years, every time he pushed Louis away or snapped at him, every time he was here and thought to himself that he’d rather be over at Zayn and Harry’s.

“I think I’m just tired,” Amir says. “Maybe I’m coming down with something.”

Louis reaches out and smooths his hair back. “You should go to bed early.”

“I will.”

“Good.”

“I think Liam’s making steak,” he says, wanting to change the subject.

“Oh, sick. Let him know I’m almost finished up here? And maybe pop in on Sunday, she always loses track of what time it is.”

“Sure.”

“By the way, your dad texted me. He wants to know if we’re gonna go back to the regular schedule next week.”

Amir’s stomach lurches. “I dunno.”

“You dunno?”

He doesn’t say anything. He can’t say anything.

“I know you’re annoyed that ‘e’s been gone,” Louis says, “but I thought you’d at least want to spend some time with your sisters.”

“I guess,” he mutters.

Louis sighs. “Thing is, he does have joint custody of you.”

“I know! But I can decide where I wanna be, can’t I?”

“I mean, yeah, you’re nearly eighteen, but I dunno, Amir, I don’t know what your rights are. It’s never come up before.”

“I’d like to think my own father would respect my wishes enough to not legally force me to see him.”

Louis looks surprised at this. “Is it seriously that big a strop, you don’t want to go that badly?”

His tone is gentle, like the voice he uses with little kids. Amir’s afraid if he answers, he’ll start crying again. He really wishes he were less high.

“How about I’ll text him back,” Louis says, “and ask if he wants to take this next week to get fully settled in? He can get dinner with you and Mims as a compromise, or something.”

“Sure,” Amir says. “Fine.”

“Okay.” He nods. “I’ll do that, then.”

“Thanks,” Amir says, and slips out the door.

He stops in the hall when he sees his watch has a new text notification in the corner. He flicks the display down.

MESSAGES

 **Sebastian** 14m ago **  
**_Youll be at sashas party right?_

His heart speeds up in his chest, and his palms prickle.

 _Yeah_ , he texts back.

Sebastian responds almost immediately. _Cool. See you there_

 

MALIBU, OCTOBER 20, 2034

Zayn can't remember, later, how the dream started off, or even where they were during it. All he really remembers is being balls deep in Louis, and really _feeling_ it, as if the tight heat around his cock were real, and the fingernails scraping his back were real, and the breathy, loud moans in his ear were real, just as real as they had been fifteen years ago.

It’s like a memory mélange of the best sex they ever had together. Paris hotel sex on their anniversary, that time on the beach, that time they came back from a party and fucked on the kitchen floor with their clothes half-off because they couldn’t wait another second.

Zayn wakes up rock hard for the first time in at least a month. He’s had morning wood from time to time, but by the time he’s taken a piss and washed his face, it’s always faded. Not this. This is a serious situation. He’s throbbing.

He sits up with care, glancing over at the other side of the bed. Harry is peacefully asleep. He looks really lovely in the morning; Zayn feels a stab of guilt for the traitorous dream and traitorous boner.

But he doesn’t want to waste an orgasm, not when he’s been absolutely dying for one. So he hurries into the bathroom and runs a scalding hot shower, jerking off as he remembers the dream in fractured pieces.

“God,” Zayn moans, tipping his head back. He’d forgotten, he really had, how good the sex was with Louis. It was the one thing they had that always worked, even in the darkest hours of their marriage.

When he comes, it’s so intense that his thighs quake and his mind whites out. He actually lies down underneath their rainfall shower head, softly groaning while the water sluices over his face. He doesn’t think he’s ever come this much in his life. He imagines that it’s all just been backing up in his bollocks the whole time, water behind a dam.

Zayn finally gets up, still pleasantly numb, and starts shampooing his hair so he’ll have a reason for being soaking wet at seven in the morning.

 

*

 

When he comes back in the bedroom, Harry’s awake. He twists in the sheets, stretching, and smiles at Zayn.

Zayn is so happy to see him post-orgasm, it feels like he’s been at sea for a year and they’re being reunited. He comes over and kneels on the bed next to Harry, leaning down and pressing eager kisses to his soft lips.

“Hi,” Harry murmurs in between kisses. “You — hi there?”

“Hi,” Zayn says, and nuzzles into his neck, kissing him there too.

Harry pets his hair. “What’s up?”

“Nothin’, just saying good morning…”

They’re quiet for a little bit.

“You’ve got that appointment with Sean today, right?” Harry says.

Zayn draws back. “Yeah. ‘Round eleven.”

“Right… are you gonna talk to him about... y’know?”

“Yeah.”

“‘Cos I feel like that’s a medical problem,” Harry says, “that you haven’t been hard for that long.”

His gut lurches. “Right.”

“Like, I’m sure you’re fine,” he adds, seeming to take Zayn’s hesitance for anxiety instead of the guilt of a dirty bad man. “But maybe you should get checked out…  I’m worried about your prostate.”

Zayn wants to tell him about the boner, then, but he can’t; Harry’ll ask why he didn’t wake him for sex, and he can’t say why. _I didn’t want to degrade you by fucking you with my weird throwback Louis boner._ Somehow he can’t see that going over well.

“I’ll ask,” Zayn says, and presses a kiss to his hairline. “I’m sure I’m fine, love. Feels like it’s a mental thing.”

“Right,” Harry says, searching his face. “Well, good you’re seeing Sean, then.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll probably get back to going on a regular schedule as well,” Harry says. “Now that we’re home…”

“I dunno about a regular schedule, for me,” Zayn says. “This is just a tune-up. I’ve got AA, that’s been enough for me.”

Harry eyes him.

“I haven’t been in regular therapy in six years, and I’ve been doin’ fine.”

“I know,” Harry says. “It’s just nice to have somebody to talk to.”

“That’s why I’ve got you,” Zayn says, fully aware of the irony.

Harry smiles.

 

*

 

Sean’s office is covered in African art, even though Sean himself is one of those milky-pale white guys with glasses. He’s a shaved-head baldy, and the low, warm lighting makes his alabaster head glow like an egg.

“Zayn,” he says in his soothing voice, “it’s been a while.”

“Yeah,” Zayn says. His leg is bouncing from nerves. “Hi.”

He wasn’t dreading this appointment back when he made it, but now that it’s here, he’s sort of nauseated thinking about having to tell this guy about his dick that doesn’t work. He was initially relieved by this morning’s boner, because it meant he probably isn’t dying of testicular cancer — but when that wore off, he had to reckon with the fact that it’s his own husband he can’t get hard for. Harry, his first love, the great romance of his life, is leaving him limp-dicked.

“How’s your second wind of parenthood treating you?” Sean says.

“Great.”

“And how’s Harry?”

“Really good.”

“Good to hear. I know when you were here last, he was dealing with a lot of grief and guilt, some postpartum depression? But that was quite some time ago.”

“Yeah, he’s loads better now,” Zayn says.

“How is he with your daughters?”

“Oh, great. Great dad. Really, like, nurturing.”

Harry dotes on their children endlessly, always lavishing them with gifts and affection, like he’s thanking them just for existing. With Marlena, it’s because she’s their rainbow baby, their miracle, and with Toni, it’s because he had chosen her.

She was left at a fire station when she was only a few hours old, swaddled in a fleece blanket. Harry had been a hormonal, grief-stricken wreck when they started looking into adoption after his third miscarriage, and when he read her file, tears trickled down his cheeks. “I want her,” he said immediately, looking up at their attorney. “Please, can we have her?”

Zayn took him to the ER on a Wednesday a month after that, because he was dizzy and couldn’t stop vomiting. They were expecting to be told that it was some sort of bad norovirus, but then a nurse swished the curtain around Harry’s bed open and said, “Did you know that you’re pregnant?”

They didn't believe her. They demanded to see his blood work, and pored over it together under the fluorescent lights. Harry — numb by then to the idea of pregnancy — turned to Zayn, whose knees had gone weak with shock and audacious hope. “We’re still adopting that baby,” he said fiercely, “no matter what happens.”

So they did. They’d named her for Tony, the fireman who found her. And a few months after they brought Toni home, Marlena arrived: seven pounds, two ounces, with Harry’s big green eyes.

“He still gets sad once in a while, Harry,” Zayn says. “Gets in his feelings. But not that often. He tries to just move forward from things, generally.”

Sean nods and writes something down. “Do you get sad along with him?”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, “I guess…” He rubs idly at his beard. “Mostly I feel helpless when he does, ‘cos there’s not much I can do. Wasn’t much I could do at the time, either.”

“Right,” Sean says. “Now, as to what brought you in here today… you sort of mumbled in your voicemail. I wasn’t sure if you meant literal impotence or emotional impotence.”

Zayn looks away from him. “Literal,” he mutters.

“Okay. And have you been checked out, physically?”

“Not yet,” he says, “but I, y’know. I did it this morning.”

“You had an erection?”

“More’n than.”

“You had intercourse?”

“Nah, man,” Zayn says, and mimes jerking off.

Sean laughs. “Alright, I get you. And this was the first time in how long, for you?”

“Least a month.”

He clicks his tongue off the roof of his mouth. “Okay. Anything going on? Have you been experiencing a period of depression?”

“Yeah,” Zayn says. “Reckon so. It’s harder to tell depression than the other thing.”

“Hypomania.”

“Yeah. And I’ve been on the Seroquel for at least ten years, it usually evens things out pretty well, so… I don’t get _sad_ depressed anymore, just, like, tired depressed.”

“Right,” Sean says.

Zayn shifts in the leather seat. “I was in France for the last five months,” he says. “Harry was shooting a film. It took forever, went into reshoots for two months. This director he works with a lot, Chris Leary, you know anything about him?”

“Oh yes,” Sean says. “I have a few other patients who are in the business.”

“Right, well, you know what I mean, then… guy’s fucking nuts. But he really likes Harry, gives him great roles, so.”

This last role had been in a _Prisoners-_ esque crime drama — Harry played a Brit whose son dies while on a family vacation in Paris. Harry’s character and one lone detective are convinced the death is suspicious; Harry’s character’s husband and the rest of _La PP_ are sure it was nothing more than a tragic accident. Harry hadn’t elaborated on the plot much more than that. He seemed to be really drained by playing this guy.

“So what did you do in France?” Sean says.

“Ahh,” Zayn says, and laughs. “That’s sort of the thing… nothing. We rented this big place in the middle of the country. Harry was gone a lot, working. So I mostly took care of the girls, kept ‘em entertained.”

“For five months? That sounds very isolating.”

“Yeah.”

“Were you lonely?”

Zayn shrugs. “More bored. Taking care of the kids all day... Our regular nanny’s on a work visa, so she couldn’t leave the states, and we hired this au pair, but the girls didn’t know her that well, and it was a strange place... so if I left them with her for the day, I’d get these calls from them crying to come back. I just felt fuckin’ trapped. And I had to work hard on staying sober, ‘cos I couldn’t really get to meetings.”

Sean writes this down. “And you got back when?”

“Last week.”

“Okay. And you said you had an orgasm this morning?”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, looking down at his fingernails and picking at one. “I had a sex dream, and I woke up hard, and I, y’know.”

“Masturbated.”

“Right.”

“What did the dream involve?”

He drags his teeth over his bottom lip. “Actually, it was about my ex.”

“Your ex-husband, or...?”

“Yeah. Louis.”

“Wow,” Sean says. “So what happened?”

“It was just me and him having sex. Nothing else happened. And I woke up really hard, like, y’know… _Alpha_ hard,” he adds.

Sean doesn’t react to this. He’s a beta, so he wouldn’t know. Zayn figures he only said that to even out their power dynamic. Kind of a dick move, really.

“I thought about the dream,” he says. “While I was… y’know. Working on myself.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“Weird,” Zayn says. “And bad.”

“Why’s that?”

He shrugs.

“Do you still have feelings for him?” Sean says.

Zayn breaks eye contact again, staring at the pleats on Sean’s pants. This guy is so boring, sartorially. Zayn’s mind wanders, wondering what he’d look like if he ditched the glasses, added an earring, put some jeans on that actually flattered him —

“Nah,” he says. “I got over him a long time ago, we’re both happier with other people. The sex was always good with us, though.”

“Better than with Harry?” Sean says.

Zayn hesitates. “In some — in some respects. Me and Louis had, like, this explosive thing… ‘s’part of why we drove each other crazy.”

That dream has him all fucked up. He’s remembering too many things. He thinks of Louis moaning _I love your cock_ in his ear, and his spine stiffens.

“Harry gets me where I’m at, we’re steady, like. He keeps me grounded,” he quickly adds. “The sex is just different, and, uh… we don’t have as much of it as me and Louis did.”

“Does the lower frequency bother you?”

“Nah, not unless it’s, like, a serious drought like this is. I mean, Harry was so busy this summer, we only did it a couple times.”

“Well, you’re older now,” Sean says. “And you’ve been together for, what is it, ten years?”

“Yeah. Still, though.”

“Did you find that frustrating, the lack of sex?”

“Yeah. Honestly, I was just gritting my teeth to get through the whole thing and go home. I wanted to support him, an’ his career, I felt like that was important to do. Especially ‘cos I don’t really have anything going on with work, right now.”

Sean nods. “Can I give you my analysis?”

Zayn shrugs. “Yeah.”

“Before you got here, I looked back at my notes from our previous sessions. I can’t help but think back to you telling me about your marriage to Louis, and how — because of your career — he was nearly always in the position of caring for your children together. How he was left with them while you were touring or in rehab, and the guilt you’ve carried about how he got his solo career off on the wrong foot because of all this, and ultimately abandoned it.”

Zayn’s face warms. He feels like he’s being put on the spot. “And?”

“Well, I just wonder if your dream had something to do with you finally being able to empathize with Louis,” Sean says. “Obviously, you sympathized before, but now you’ve been directly in his position. Sometimes a sex dream has little to do with sex, and more to do with psychological closure with another person. This might have been your brain’s way of expressing that empathy for Louis, and processing some of the guilt you were holding onto. And maybe a part of you was nostalgic for a time when you had a partner who shouldered those childcare responsibilities for you, instead of vice versa.”

Zayn sits there, confused. He does really like the idea that the dream wasn’t actually about sex, but: “I got hard, though.”

“You were reacting to stimuli,” Sean says. “Perfectly normal.”

“So the dream was emotional,” Zayn says, “but my dick thought it was physical?”

“Essentially.”

“So you think maybe me not getting hard with Harry could be emotional, too?”

“Yes, although I still want you to get checked out by a doctor.”

Zayn remembers something he had wanted to say, then. “I had this before. The… not getting hard thing.”

Sean arches an eyebrow and scribbles on his notepad again. “Really?”

“Yeah. Well, back when I started SSRIs…”

“That’s normal.”

“Yeah, but it happened ages before that, too. With Louis, right before I left the band?” Zayn squints at the carpet, trying to remember. “Christ, that was like twenty years ago, now…”

“Pretty unusual for someone that age to experience erectile dysfunction,” Sean says.

“I was really depressed and anxious,” Zayn says. “Felt trapped… Louis was nice about it, though. He didn’t make a big deal of it.”

He always manages to forget how gentle Louis was with him in general around that time. The accidental pregnancy tends to loom large over their first few months together. So does him leaving the band.

He really had loved Louis, even then — just not enough not to leave. The night before that brief April break began, the night after his final concert with them, Louis had snuck wordlessly into his room and cuddled up in bed with him, clinging to him like he knew. Closed his hand over Zayn’s bicep, sprawled over him like a starfish. Maybe on some level, he did know.

Zayn had stroked Louis’ hair and kissed his face. He wanted to get as much of him as he could before he went.

Sean nods. “Interesting choice of words. Does Harry?”

“Does Harry what?”

“‘Make a big deal’ of your erectile dysfunction.”

Zayn wishes he’d stop using that phrase; it makes him feel like they’re at the end of a Viagra commercial. He thinks, then, that if anyone tries to prescribe him Viagra, he’ll punch them in the mouth. “I guess it bothers him? He’s taking it personally. Keeps getting on my arse about going to a doctor.”

“That makes sense,” Sean says. “He’s your husband, he’s probably concerned for you, concerned about what this means in the context of your marriage.”

“He wants it to not be his fault,” Zayn says. “I think it’s makin’ him insecure. He thinks we’re connecting less since France.”

“Have you been?”

“Maybe, but…”

Sean lifts his chin. “Are you angry with him?”

Zayn shrugs yet again. “Maybe.”

 

*

 

Blood test: negative for endocrine disorders.

EKG: negative for cardiac disorders.

Cognitive test: negative for neurological disorders.

Prostate: negative for cancer.

“It might just be depression, fatigue,” says his GP, Dr. Ramesh, as he walks Zayn out of his office with a hand on his lower back. “Take some time for yourself to rest and relax. Could also be the Seroquel... Give me a few days to research alternatives, and we’ll discuss switching you, okay?”

Zayn returns home, feeling defeated. Harry’s car is in the driveway, and he’s already gotten the girls from school; they run to the foyer to greet Zayn.

“Hi hi,” he says, squatting and pulling them both in for a hug.

In the sitting room down the hall, he can hear Harry talking on the phone. It sounds like a business call.

“We’re playing Town,” Toni says. “You wanna be the sheriff?”

“Yeah, be the sheriff!” Marlena chirps. “I’m the barkeeper. Toni’s the bad guy, she keeps trying to take over my bar. She has a mask and a gun.”

Zayn laughs. “Sounds like you need the sheriff’s help, then.”

Toni grins. “Only if you can catch me!” she shouts, and darts off, her dark corkscrew curls bouncing.

Zayn glances at his watch as he follows them down the hall. Amir still hasn’t answered the text he sent to him directly, asking _we’re all gonna miss u this weekend, you sure u don’t want to come by??_

They’ve been talking exclusively through Louis this past week, which he hates. He knows Amir is angry at him for being gone, but he can’t help but take offense to this level of resentment, this stonewalling. Especially when, in his mind, the five months of absence were Harry’s doing, Harry’s fault, something Zayn was shackled to against his will. Does Amir think he _wanted_ to be dragged to France and abandoned in a creepy old house that only took a week to start feeling like a prison with a wine cellar? That he wanted to spend a beautiful summer sinking into a depression so sound that there were days where he never got out of his pajamas?

Zayn can't tell him any of this, because it’s private business between him and Harry, and he’s got to be the adult, the parent. So he has to just suffer through shunned by his son who he badly misses and would really like to talk to.

He had discussed this on the phone with Louis the other night about it, and Louis hedged about it. “You know how he takes things personally,” he said. “Just give him a little time to get over it.”

Zayn bit his tongue, said, “Yeah, alright.”

 

*

 

**iMessage**

**Fri, Oct 20,** 9:20 PM

 **Niall Horan** named the conversation “New gc cos i deleted the old one”.

Niall  
_Lads_

Louis  
_yes lad_

Niall  
_im gonna be down your way first week in november . can we do a band meeting ? plan reunion tour 2 ??_

Louis  
_Fuck yes !!!  
Payno says yes too _

Niall  
_Are the man’s fingers broken ?_

Louis  
_Hahahahaha no he’s in the shower, I shouted him_

Harry  
_Sure. Just tell me what day_

 

Niall  
_Follow up question for you Harold_

Harry  
_?_

 

Niall  
_How amenable is your husband to joining us ?_

Harry  
_For the meeting?_

 

Niall  
_For the tour_

Harry  
_Shit… Wow. I have no idea actually_

 

Louis  
_Ha that would be absolutely wild_

Harry   
_I’d give it 70/30?_

 

Niall  
_For or against_

Harry  
_70 against 30 for. What do you think Louis_

 

Louis  
_70/30 sounds about right_

Niall  
_Ah well , ill take it_

Harry  
_I can bring him to the meeting and we can all pitch him then?_

Louis  
_Perf_

 

*

 

Harry finds Zayn in the kitchen, rummaging in the fridge. Probably looking for a Diet Coke.

He sneaks up behind him and pokes him in the waist.

“If you really thought I didn’t hear you walk up, you’re more crackers than I thought,” Zayn says with a laugh, straightening up and turning around.

Harry laughs back and does a pouty face.

“What’s up?”

“I was gonna ask,” he says, trying to sound as innocent as possible, “if you’d like to… ah… come by Louis and Liam’s with me in a few weeks? Niall’s gonna be there too,” he adds clumsily.

Zayn seems confused. “Alright?”

“It’s actually sort of a band meeting,” Harry says, “but I wanted you along… unless you’d rather not.”

He shrugs and shakes his head. “I hang out with you lot, don’t I? I can just visit with Amir while you’re talking band shit.”

His voice gets unusually tentative when he says his son’s name. Harry knows there’s some tension there right now, but Zayn doesn’t seem to want to elaborate too much, and Harry doesn’t like to pry.

“Yeah, there you go,” Harry says. “Perfect.”

Zayn cracks the tab on his Diet Coke. “You wrapping up this hiatus, then?”

He laughs. “Yeah, actually haven’t toured yet this decade, so.”

“Right. Well, you know me,” Zayn says, somewhat bitterly. “Schedule’s wide open. So just lemme know.”

Harry gives him a kiss on the cheek. “Wanna watch James’s new show? That celebrity dunk tank thing?”

“Sure,” Zayn says. Harry nudges the fridge shut, takes him by the hand and leads him into the hall.

 

CALABASAS, OCTOBER 21, 2034

Amir spends a few minutes examining himself in the full-length mirror on his bathroom wall, turning back and forth, then changes into a tighter pair of jeans and rolls the ends of the sleeves on his black t-shirt up.

“Alright,” he mutters at his reflection, “better.”

He uses both hands to mess up his hair, then sneaks down the hall past Sunday’s room (she’s got friends over, he can hear them in there giggling about something — he asked her earlier if she wanted to go this party with him, and she just laughed) into Louis and Liam’s bathroom, where he starts going through their cologne collection.

There’s an expensive looking bottle of something called _Neroli Portofino_ , which sounds promising. He dabs it on his wrists, his throat, and behind his ears.

(Harry’s the one who taught him to properly apply a scent, when he turned fourteen and mentioned in passing that his friends had started spraying down their entire bodies with Axe in the locker room after gym class.

“Women know what they’re doing,” Harry had said, and demonstrated the proper technique on himself as Amir stood before him in the bathroom, transfixed by the fluidity of his movements. “Men always use too much… you don’t want to _reek_ , it’s tacky.”)

Downstairs, Liam and Louis are with the twins in the den, watching SportsCenter. Each of the boys is snuggled under one of Louis’ arms; Liam has his arm stretched out on the couch behind Louis. Everyone’s sock-footed and cozy-looking.

Amir clears his throat. They all look up.

“Hey natty boy,” Louis says, smiling. “You heading out?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Jason’s picking me up.”

“Is he drinking?” Louis says.

“Probably? He’s gonna have the car drive us back, though.”

Liam shifts in his seat, but says nothing. He doesn’t like Jason at all — never has. He’s always perfectly nice when he comes around, but Amir has heard him whispering to Louis that Jason “has morality issues”, whatever that means.

“Alright,” Louis says, glancing back at the TV. “Curfew’s still half twelve.”

“I know,” Amir says.

“You sure? ‘Cos you seem confused on that, lately.”

Amir rolls his eyes.

“I saw that,” Louis says sharply, despite that he’s still looking at the TV. Amir doesn’t understand how he does that.

“Sorry,” he says, not wanting to start shit five minutes before he’s due to leave.

“Alright,” Louis says, and flicks his gaze back to him. “Be safe, don't get drunk. You're wee, two beers is plenty.”

“I’ll be safe,” he says, slipping out of the room.

As he walks away, he hears Patrick chirp, “I wanna go to a party...”

Liam laughs. “Let’s not rush into that part of your life, kiddo.”

 

*

 

Jason’s late by fifteen minutes.

“Late,” Amir says as he slides into the back seat without a hello.

“Not my fault,” Jason says, starting the car back up. “Evan’s.”

Evan, busy texting, passes him back a flask without looking up. Amir opens it and sniffs, then grimaces. “Vodka?”

“Yeah.”

He hands it back. “No thanks. I hate vodka.”

“Sash has beer,” Jason said. “She said Nicole’s brother brought a ton of stuff by earlier.”

Amir’s heart jumps. “So he’s there already?”

Evan looks up, then, clearly exasperated. “Don’t tell me you’re still into _Sebastian_ ,” he says.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Amir snaps.

“Please, yeah I do. That douchebag comes through once like every couple months, gives you one dopey smile and you get all stupid and ditch us and run off with him for the whole night.”

“Yeah, only on nights when you two are being boring fucking losers hiding away upstairs in a bong circle and not actually partying —“

“Hey, hey,” Jason interjects. “Ladies. Retract the claws, please.”

“He’s too old for you,” Evan mutters.

Amir shoves his shoulder. Evan turns in his seat. reaches back and twists Amir’s nipple. They start slap-fighting.

“ _Ladie_ s,” Jason bellows.

They quiet down, then, and a prickly silence descends over the car.

“Pass the vape,” Evan mutters. Jason does.

 

*

 

Sasha’s parents are out of town this weekend, as they nearly always are. They have a great house for parties; a sprawling, Frank Lloyd Wright-esque behemoth perched on a hill in the middle of a forest, with their closest neighbor a half a mile away and the trees providing perfect insulation.

Jason lets the Escalade roll slowly up her long driveway as he takes several frantic pulls from the flask, gagging after each one.

“Bro,” Amir says, laughing, “just stick to beer.”

“No,” Jason groans, “it never gets me drunk enough… why does vodka taste like furniture polish?”

“You know what furniture polish tastes like?” Evan and Amir say in unison, then grin at each other, their earlier quarrel forgotten.

“Ha, ha,” Jason says, taking another long shot and letting out a choked gurgle.

“This is the saddest pregame,” Evan says.

“Just drink when we get in there,” Amir suggests.

“No, no, look,” Jason says, and points up the driveway where cars are parked dozens deep, in two perfect lines on either side of it all the way up to the house, which gleams like an amber jewel against the pitch-black forest. They can see through the glass walls; dozens of silhouetted figures are moving around, talking, dancing. “It’s already started. I need to be lubricated before we walk in. I’m not naturally chill like you guys, I have neuroses.”

Amir laughs. “You’ll be fine,” he says, and reaches over the seat to mess up his hair.

 

*

 

The front door is open, but Sasha pushes through the crowd to greet them anyway, her blonde ponytail bouncing.

“Boys!” she exclaims.

“Hey beautiful,” Amir says, and leans in to kiss her on the cheek. 

She giggles. “Hey, you smell good,” she whispers to him.

“I know,” Amir says, grinning at her. “Where’s the beer?”

“Kitchen,” Sasha says.

“Are Ashton and Kyle here?” Jason says.

She points over her shoulder in the direction of the living room. Amir scans the crowd. There must be sixty or so people here already, and it’s only nine. “Playing beer pong.”

Evan glances up. “Shit, I think they started Wizard Staff without us.”

“Oh, those _bitches_ ,” Jason says. He passes the flask to Evan and starts making his way through the crowd. Evan ambles after him.

“Hey,” Sasha whispers to Amir. “I have some molly.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, I already took some.”

Some guy pushes drunkenly into them; Amir steers Sasha out of the way and shoots him a look. “How’s it feel?”

“Really good,” she says. “So good. You wanna come upstairs with me and the girls and take a little?”

“Definitely.”

They start heading for the stairs. Amir spots Nicole off to the side, holding a red cup and talking to someone. He wonders where her brother is.

 

*

 

Upstairs in Sasha’s room, four of her friends are gathered — including McKenna, who was Amir’s VP when he was class president.

“Ameeeer,” she exclaims when he walks in. She’s obviously already drunk. “I miss you!”

“You see me like twice a month at least,” he says, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Sasha’s room is massive, even bigger than his own. She has a nook in the corner with a large enough desk and enough bookshelves to essentially make it its own study. A Janelle Monae song is thumping from a wall speaker.

“Yeah, but I miss seeing you everyday,” McKenna complains.

“I miss you too,” he says, flashing her a smile. “Veep.”

“Veep! I was a good veep,” she says wistfully.

“You were. Our campaign posters were hot.”

They had dressed up and done the _Mr. and Mrs. Smith_ back-to-back pose; they outclassed all their competition by a mile.

“They _were_!” she says. “Aww, man, I miss last year.”

“Me too,” he says.

Rebecca sits up on the bed like she’s just realized Sasha is back. “Moll-y,” she chants, her eyes glazed from alcohol, “moll-y, moll-y —“

“I’m working on it,” Sasha exclaims. She’s bent over her bureau, trying to dig little round pills out of a plastic bag. “Okay, here,” she says, and starts going around to each of them, dropping a colorful little sphere in each of their hands.

Amir gets a blue one. He stares at it and turns it in his fingers, then puts it on his tongue and looks up at the girls on the bed, watching them, waiting for it to dissolve.

“Tonight’s gonna be good,” McKenna declares.

Amir thinks she’s right.

 

*

 

It doesn’t hit him until he’s in the middle of a flip cup game. It’s this great rush of euphoria and peace. He shivers and looks around, smiling.

He feels better than he’s felt in months, to the extent that Amir wonders, for a moment, if he’s been unhappier than he realized. That thought falls out of his head, though, quickly replaced by a desire to touch everyone and everything, to spread his good feelings all over them like marmalade.

“What are you doing?” Evan says, laughing, when Amir turns to him and starts stroking his flannel shirt and massaging his cheeks.

“I just feel good,” Amir says, running his hands through Evan’s sleek blonde hair and then nudging him away from the beer pong table, pressing him up against a wooden pillar. “Hi…”

Evan settles his hands on Amir’s hips and smiles down at him. “Hey, man.”

The song that’s thumping on the speakers sounds familiar. It takes him a moment, then he laughs.

“What?” Evan says.

“Nothing.” He points up. “My stepdad produced this song.”

“Seriously? That’s funny.”

There’s some commotion in the living room, and Amir looks over Evan’s shoulder. Sebastian and another guy coming through the patio door, carrying a keg between them.

“Keg’s here,” Sebastian shouts, and cheers go up.

Amir slips out of Evan’s grip and flits over to him through the crowd, light on his feet. He taps Sebastian on the shoulder.

“Hang on, I have to tap it,” he says without looking up.

“Dumbass,” Amir says. “It’s me.”

Sebastian does a double take, then abandons the keg to his friend. “Hey there,” he says warmly, his light eyes twinkling, and bends down to kiss Amir on the mouth.

Amir laughs against his lips, reaching up to stroke his hair. “Miss me?”

“Yeah, yeah…”

Through the molly haze, he dimly registers that people are pressing up against them, trying to get to the keg. “Out of the _waaay_ ,” Kyle says in Amir’s ear, “I need _beeeer_ —“

“Yeah, yeah yeah,” Amir says, then to Sebastian: “Wanna go somewhere private?”

Sebastian nods and takes him by the hand, leading him to the stairs.

 

*

 

They have rushed, fumbling sex in one of the guest rooms. Amir is slipping away from reality, a giggling mess who has to be guided up the stairs. They fall into bed and Sebastian says something about not having a condom; Amir just says whatever, whatever. He has half a fevered thought that he has to make Seb pull out, but then he's distracted, and he can't remember if he did or not. It doesn't matter, anyway, not when everything feels this nice.

When it’s over, Amir lies on the quilted blanket atop the bed, running his hands back and forth over it while his entire head buzzes. There’s a print of a sailboat race on the wall; it looms over him. He thinks of his dad’s sailboat, and his dad; he suddenly remembers what Mia told him, and has a wave of nausea.

Sebastian is standing, doing his shirt back up. Amir watches his hands move in the darkness.

“How are you?” he says, because it's one of the few normal sentences he can remember.

“Alright,” Sebastian says. “I’m gonna get kicked out of my frat if my grades slide any more.”

“Why’re you back?” Amir says, hoping that he might be the reason.

He shrugs. “It’s Nicki’s birthday tomorrow. Usually come home for that.”

Amir says nothing. There’s a hollowness inside him that’s only growing by the moment. He tries to cling to the good feelings.

Sebastian comes over and sits beside him on the bed. He looks really handsome. “Haven’t seen you since the summer, have I?” he says.

Amir swallows. “D’you ever want more, with me? Like to see me more, or, I dunno?”

Sebastian’s face changes. He’s quiet. Downstairs, the party is roaring away: music, laughter.

“Like a relationship?” he says. “Amir, no… I thought we were on the same page with this… we just link up when I’m back home.”

“Right,” he mutters.

“I actually wanted to discuss this with you… I think maybe we ought to stop doing this.”

Amir’s heart drops into his stomach. “What?”

“I don’t want you to get too invested. Like… I already feel weird that I’m the first person you slept with, y’know? I’m older, I have a different perspective.”

There’s a kind, pitying expression in Sebastian’s gray eyes that makes Amir want to scratch them out of his head.

“I kind of have a girlfriend right now,” he continues. “It’s just been so we’d both have a date to formals and stuff, but she wants to be more serious, she wants to like, get exclusive. I took her up on it.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I mean… it’s probably time for me to get serious about somebody. I still want to see you, though, like I still want to hang out when I visit home —“

Amir suddenly feels even sicker than he did a minute ago. “Wait... you waited until _after_ we fucked to tell me?”

“What’s wrong?” Sebastian’s face changes. “Wait, you didn’t already catch feelings, did you? Because I really didn’t want that."

Amir’s face is hot, now. Embarrassment? No — his mouth springs open — it’s anger —

“Does your _girlfriend_ know you still party with your sister’s high school friends and fuck seventeen-year-olds?” he snarls.

“Whoa.” Sebastian, looking shocked by the turn in his mood, puts his hands up. “Amir —” he reaches out to touch his arm.

Amir springs up, furious. “Don’t touch me." He sways on his feet. He can barely think. Everything is so hot — his face, his chest. He feels possessed by something inky and malignant. It’s seeping slowly through him, an emotional oil spill. .

Sebastian gets up. Amir backs away, pulling his jeans on and doing them back up.

“Can we talk about this?” Sebastian says in a soothing voice, inching into his space.

“No,” Amir says, heart pounding, tugging his shirt over his head.

“Amir —“

He slips into the hallway. Everything’s twisted on him, turned sour. His euphoria has melted away like candy floss in water. The darkness is scary now, the pounding noise from downstairs overwhelming. He fumbles his way down the staircase, toward the light. Anxiety is collecting in his gut and chest, making them tingle unpleasantly.

Ashton runs into him at the foot of the stairs. He’s sloppy drunk. “Hey you,” he exclaims, wrapping an arm around Amir.

Amir looks up at him. “I need beer,” he says numbly.

“Let’s get you some beer, then, man!"

 

*

 

Many rounds of flip cup later, he ends up in the patio hot tub with Sasha, making out with her. It doesn’t mean anything — they’ve known each other forever, and he’s barely into girls — but he needs so badly to be touched right now.

After about a half hour of this, Jason finds him. He’s staggering drunk. “Amir,” he slurs. “Amir…”

They separate and look up. Amir’s lips are buzzing; her nails feel strange on the back of his neck. His vision is swirling. A cool breeze rolls by, and he twitches, hating the feel of it.

“What?” he manages.

“It’s almost one... I have to get you and Evan back, you’re missing curt… curfew. I wanna drop you off fast so I can get back here before it gets too late.”

Amir tries to process this while Sasha helps him out of the hot tub. The warm air feels weird on his skin, and makes him shiver. His heart is going really fast.

He stripped down to his boxers to get in the water; they help him get his clothes back on. He’s shaking.

“How fucked up is he?” he hears Jason whisper to Sasha.

“I dunno. He didn’t seem that bad when we got in… maybe it’s the molly? I did some too, but I took it way longer ago…”

Someone is laughing. Amir realizes with a lurch that it’s him.

“What?” Jason says. “What’s funny?”

He shakes his head. He doesn’t know.

 

*

 

Amir fades in and out in the backseat of Jason’s car, streetlights bleeding through his eyelids as they go by. He hears snatches of conversation as Jason and Evan talk up front.

“Is he awake?” Jason whispers.

Evan glances back at him. “Nah, he’s out.”

“What’s up with him tonight?”

They’re gliding along a freeway. Flying. Amir’s fingers are tingly and numb.

“I don’t know,” Evan whispers back. “I think something went down with him and Sebastian.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I saw him come down after they went upstairs, he looked pissed.”

Jason has nothing to say to this.

“I think something else, too,” Evan adds. “Amir was saying something earlier, before him and Sash hooked up —”

“Wait, did he legit hook up with her?”

“I dunno, they were in the hot tub for a while,” Evan says.

“That’s such bullshit…”

“What is?”

Jason drops his voice. “You don’t ever get tired of how easy it is for him? I don’t even want to go out with him sometimes, it’s like nerfing my dick.”

“Shh, shh,” Evan whispers. “I dunno if he’s totally out.”

“What was he saying?”

“Huh?”

“You said he was saying something.”

“Oh, uh… Just some angry shit about his dad, but it didn’t really make sense.”

“Weird,” Jason says. “Always thought Louis was cool.”

“Nah, his other dad…”

Amir mumbles from the backseat, “Asshole.”

Evan glances back at him. “What was that?”

He just shakes his head.

“Alright, well, don’t puke. We’re almost there.”

 

*

 

They help him up to the house, holding his watch arm up to the front door until it beeps and slides open. Evan takes over from there, dragging Amir upstairs while Jason waits anxiously in the foyer.

“Be quiet,” Jason hisses. “Seriously, don’t wake them up.”

Evan sighs in annoyance. Amir stumbles, and he grips him more securely.

They stop at the top of the stairs. Amir sits down hard. “Wait… might puke…”

Evan’s face swims in his vision, lit by the ghostly moonlight coming through the fanlight window over the front door. “Okay,” he whispers. “I’ll leave you here, then… drink some water, get some sleep…”

“Okay,” Amir whispers back.

Evan slips away, back down the stairs.

 

*

 

Liam’s confused when he wakes. He knows it can’t be very late, and he doesn’t have to wee.

Their bedroom door is open, and there’s a little figure in the doorway. One of the boys. He can’t tell which in the darkness.

“Hey,” he whispers. “Nightmare?”

“I think Amir is sick.” It’s Max.

Next to him, Louis lets out a soft snore.

“Alright…” Liam slips out from under the covers and comes over to Max, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll take care of it. Go back to sleep.”

He finds Amir sprawled out in the hallway, pale and unmoving, with vomit on the carpet next to him. Liam’s heart begins pounding, and all the blood drains from his head.

Max hasn’t moved from his side; he’s looking up at Liam, searching his face.

“Go back to bed,” Liam says to him, more urgently.

“Is he okay, though?” Max says.

“Bed, kiddo. And stay there, yeah? Wait for me.”

Max leaves him, obviously reluctant. Liam waves his wrist sharply at the closest overhead light, and it flicks on. Blinking hard, he kneels next to Amir and flips him over.

He’s breathing. Liam presses his fingers to Amir’s throat: his pulse is like a jackhammer, pounding away, and his skin is hot to the touch. He’s soaked with sweat.

“LOUIS,” he shouts, no longer caring if he wakes the other kids up. “Amir?”

No response.

_“Amir!”_

Amir groans softly. Liam shakes him hard by the shoulders, and his eyes open a slit.

“Why are you so hot?” He presses his hands to Amir’s forehead, then his cheeks. “Are you sick, or did you take something?”

Louis stumbles out into the hall. “What?” he says, his voice still thick with sleep. “What, what’s going on?”

“Took molly,” Amir slurs.

Liam turns to Louis. “Call Dr. Gimbel?”

Louis immediately starts tapping at his watch. Liam remembers, then: Apple Medical. He lifts Amir’s wrist and swipes two screens to the left, then flicks the display of his vital signs up. The hologram hovers in the air, displaying sickening numbers in red — DANGER ZONE, a pop-up reads, POSSIBLE MEDICAL EMERGENCY.

“One sixty beats per minute,” Liam says, “and a hundred four degrees — how much did you take, Amir?”

Amir buries his face in his sleeve.

“ _How much_ ,” Liam barks at him.

“One,” he says.

“Just one? One pill?”

He nods, then lets out a delirious laugh that strikes fear into Liam’s heart.

“Hey,” Louis says into his wrist, “Richard, sorry to wake you —“

“Hey, that’s why I’m a concierge doctor,” Richard’s tinny voice rings out over speaker. “What’s up?”

“I think my son’s having some sort of reaction to ecstasy, we just found him in the hallway, he threw up, his heartbeat’s fast, and he’s a hundred and four degrees —“

“A hundred and four?” he says sharply. “Okay, listen to me carefully. Get him into a cold bath and dump some ice into it — got that? And if his temperature increases, call 911. I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

“Thanks,” Louis says, then rings off.

“Go get ice,” Liam says, “all of our ice from the fridge. Both fridges. I’ll get him in the bath.”

Louis nods and sprints off down the stairs, quick as a flash. Liam heaves Amir onto his shoulder fireman style and carries him into the second guest bathroom, the only one upstairs that has a tub.

With a groan of effort, he deposits Amir into it. His head lolls like he’s a rag doll, but as soon as Liam turns the shower head on and starts filling the tub with ice cold water, his chin snaps up, eyes blazing. Amir starts fighting him, clawing at him like a cat.

“Stop,” Liam shouts, holding him down. “This is for your own good, stop!”

Louis comes upstairs with a punch bowl filled the brim with ice, and dumps it into the water as it rises. Amir screams like he’s being murdered and rakes his nails down Liam’s forearm.

Liam bites the inside of his cheek hard, but doesn’t flinch.

“Amir,” Louis whispers, kneeling next to the tub. “It’s okay, it’s alright. I need you to talk to me, now. What else did you take?”

Amir shakes his head. “Nothing,” he croaks. He’s begun to shiver badly. His black hair is stuck to his forehead by sweat and bath water.

“Did you drink?” Louis says. He sounds preternaturally calm, although Liam can see that he’s trembly.

Amir nods.

“When did you start feeling sick?”

“Hot tub...”

Liam’s heart skips a beat. “Jesus Christ, no wonder he’s overheated.”

They keep Amir in the bath for the next twenty minutes, the three of them unusually quiet. Amir keeps shivering and letting out the occasional whimper. His watch arm dangles off the edge of the tub, and Louis hangs onto his wrist, checking his vitals every minute or so.

“Down to a hundred beats per minute and a hundred and one degrees,” he murmurs.

Their watches ding in unison. Liam lifts his wrist: _Richard Gimbel is outside, do you want to let him in?_ He hits yes.

Richard, who’s a big guy, comes thumping up the stairs and down the hall — Liam thinks with trepidation that there’s no way his kids are sleeping through all of this. He’s just thankful none of them have come to investigate.

The doctor appears in the doorway, then, a medical bag in tow and his mouth a flat line under his bristly gray mustache. “Can I get in there, Liam?” he says.

Liam jumps to his feet and dances out of the way. Louis stays kneeling next to the tub, eyes fixed on his son.

Richard examines him for a while, peeling his eyelids back (Amir doesn’t seem to appreciate this very much) and checking his skin elasticity, listening to him with a stethoscope, peppering them all with questions.

There’s a lull while the doctor listens to his heartbeat, then he says, “How much does he weigh?”

Liam glances up at Louis.

“Shit,” Louis says, running his hand through his hair, “I dunno… less than nine stone?”

“And what’s that in pounds?”

“Ahh, ‘round one-twenty, I guess...”

“One-nineteen,” Amir rasps, surprising all of them.

“Thanks,” Richard says. “Liam, can you pour him a glass of water? I’m going to give him something for the tachycardia.”

Liam quickly pops up and digs a glass out from under the sink, filling it with cool water and bringing it over. Richard takes a prescription bottle from his pocket and shakes it into his hand; they all watch in silence as Amir takes the pill.

“I don’t think he needs the hospital,” Richard says.

“You sure?” Louis says.

“Well, keep an eye on his vitals and call 911 if he worsens at all. But I think you intervened in time. It doesn’t seem to be a true overdose, he just needs to be kept calm and cool. Drain the bathtub, but keep him under the shower a while longer. Maybe fifteen minutes or so.”

“Okay,” Louis says, sounding relieved. “And we can call you back?”

“Boys, of course! Any time.” Richard gets up, clapping Liam on the back. “Hopefully you won’t need to.”

They thank him, and once he’s gone, Liam takes his spot on the floor back. Louis busies himself with draining the bathtub.

Amir winces when the cool shower spray hits him in the face again. “Dad,” he says hoarsely.

“Yeah, love?” Louis says, his voice small.

“Dad…”

Amir starts crying, then, and he suddenly reminds Liam so much of Zayn that he tears up, himself. He chokes it back.

Louis immediately climbs into the bathtub with his son and settles down next to him. He pulls Amir to his chest, cradling his head. They lie there together under the spray, looking like the _Pietà_.

“Why do I feel like this,” Amir whispers. Liam can barely hear him; it’s clear this is meant only for Louis.

“Shh,” Louis says, kissing him on the head. “You’re fine… it’s just a bad trip, you’re gonna be fine…”

They stay together like that until Amir is down to ninety-nine degrees, and then Louis and Liam work in wordless tandem to help him out of the tub. He’s shaking violently, his clothes plastered to his skin.

Louis and Liam help him to his room in silence; Liam turns his back while Louis helps Amir change into a t-shirt and boxers. They guide him into bed, pulling only a light sheet over him.

“I might puke again,” Amir mumbles.

Louis strokes his hair. “We put a trash can by your bed… right ‘ere.”

“Dad,” he says shakily, “I’m sorry.”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Get some sleep.”

“Okay…”

Liam turns and goes out in the hall, heading toward the boys’ room. A light is on in there; he pokes his head in.

Sunday is tucked into Max’s bed next to him. She’s awake, reading something on a transparent tablet by the light from the bedside lamp. But Max is fast asleep, and in the other bed, so is Patrick.

“Hey,” Liam whispers to her.

“Hey,” Sunday says. “They came and woke me while you guys were with Dr. Gimbel, they were worried… is Amir okay?”

“He’s fine,” Liam says. “He just needs some rest. You should go back to bed, sweetheart.”

“I’m kind of awake now,” Sunday says, and laughs.

He laughs, too. “I know what you mean.” He has so much adrenaline in him, he could run five miles. “Alright… night, loves.”

“Night, Dad.”

Liam pulls the door shut behind him and turns to see Louis standing there in the hall, still damp and looking like he’s about to cry.

Liam instinctively pulls Louis to his chest and wraps his arms around him. Louis buries his face in the crook of his neck.

“Tommo,” Liam whispers, his heart aching.

He makes a choked noise. Liam reaches up and strokes his hair, then presses a kiss to his forehead and clings to him more tightly.

“I need, um —“ Louis hiccups. “Need to call —“

“Zayn can wait ‘til the morning, you need some rest —“

“Not Zayn, his fuckin’ friends, those little shits, they must have dropped him off like this.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Yeah, we do! His _best_ mates, they dumped him in a hallway to lie there in his own vomit —“

“Lou, it’s a bad idea, you’re in a state —“

But Louis is already dialing Jason. Liam guides him down the hall to their own bedroom, gently shutting the door behind him and pulling Louis’ wet shirt off over his head for him as he holds his ringing watch to his face.

“Yo,” they hear a young male voice say.

“Jason,” Louis says, “the fuck happened to my son tonight?”

“Oh, hey, Louis!”

“I’m Mr Tomlinson to you right now,” he snaps. “The fuck are you playing at, leaving him like this without waking us up?”

“Oh,” Jason says, “shit.”

There’s a lot of noise in the background, but it fades abruptly, like he’s gone into a bathroom and shut the door.

“He seemed okay to us,” Jason says.

“He wasn’t.”

“We thought he just needed to sleep it off, sorry —“

“Were you all taking molly tonight?”

“No, it was just him and a few of the girls.”

“Did he take anything else? Coke, anythin’ like that?”

“No, nothing, I swear. He had some beers, and that’s it.”

“How long was he in the hot tub?”

There’s a pause. “Half an hour?”

“Alright,” Louis mutters. “Thanks. Good night.”

“Night, Mr —”

Louis hangs up on him mid-sentence, then stands there looking drained.

“You hear him just now?” he says. “He thinks he’s my _pal_.”

“It’s a good thing,” Liam says. “He trusts you enough to tell you the truth.”

“If he even did.”

“How’s your back?”

“Bit tweaked from all that,” Louis admits. “Not too bad, though.”

“C’mere,” Liam says, wrapping an arm around him. “Let’s get some sleep.”

He herds Louis like a sheepdog, walking him to the direction of the bed and pulling the sheet up. Louis climbs under, sets both their watches so they’ll be alerted if Amir’s vitals spike, then settles listlessly against the pillows. One lone tear leaks out of his eye and trails down his cheek.

Liam snuggles up next to him, cups his face in his hands and presses kisses to every part of his face. Louis nuzzles closer, obviously seeking the shelter of his arms. Liam pulls him in and holds him tight.

“Thank you,” Louis murmurs.

“For what?”

“Helping me tonight.”

“Of course, Lou. You never have to thank me for that.”

“Heavin’ him in and out of bathtub, Big Payno…”

Liam laughs and nuzzles him back. “No problem there, he’s a light little thing.”

“Yeah, we might have to start sneaking him protein shakes or something.”

Liam hesitates. “By the way, the boys woke up… actually, Max was the one who found him —“

“Oh, Christ...”

“It’s alright, I think Sunday told ‘em it was alright, got ‘em back to sleep, but I think it spooked him. We should talk to them tomorrow… play it like he just had too much to drink.”

"Never ends, does it?" Louis lets out a raspy little laugh. “Y'know, there’s been something going on with Amir… 's'only getting worse..."

Liam secures his arms more tightly against Louis, stroking his shoulder blade in a soothing motion.

“He’s gonna be okay,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to Louis’ forehead.

Louis is quiet for a moment. “What if Max hadn’t found him?”

“You can’t think like that… he did, alright?”

Louis sags into him. Liam keeps petting him and whispering to him until he’s sure Louis is asleep.

 

CALABASAS, OCTOBER 22, 2034

“Are we ready for pancakes round three?” Liam says, poking his head back into the dining room from the kitchen.

“Are you tryin’ to kill us?” Louis exclaims. “You’re trying to kill all of us. I’m gonna have to take the kids and do a runner in the middle of the night, ‘cos you’re a madman with murder in his heart.”

Liam grins at him.

“I want more,” Patrick says, and Max nods hard.

“Alright, it’s your funeral, boys,” Louis says, pushing his plate away from himself.

Down at the end of the table, Sunday glances up from her tablet. “Dad, I’ll have some more blueberries, if there are any?”

“I used them all in the pancakes,” Liam says apologetically.

Sunday gets up, then, yawning and stretching. “That’s my cue to head out, then.”

“D’you _have_ to go to the barn today?” Liam says. He wipes his hands off on the apron he’s got around his waist. “I thought we could have a family day, go to the beach or something.”

“Dad, I’m sorry, I have to take Duchess to this clinic,” Sunday says. “Boyd Martin is only in town for three days, I can’t miss that opportunity.”

Liam sighs, but goes back in the kitchen without saying anything.

Amir comes into the dining room looking like death warmed over, his eyes darting around as if he’s expecting to be yelled at.

“Pancakes?” he says.

“Pancake Sunday,” Max reminds him cheerfully.

(Louis and Liam had taken the boys aside that morning, when they were still sleepy-eyed and floppy-haired in their Avengers pajamas. Careful to mince words, they haltingly explained that sometimes when people drink too much, they get sick.

“But I thought people got drunk for fun,” Patrick said.

“They do,” Louis says, “adults do. When you’re, ah, a grown-up, and responsible, you don’t get sick like that.”

This was, of course, a bald-faced lie, but a noble one. While Louis had a tactic of brutal honesty when it came to raising his kids with Zayn, he and Liam have agreed on a softer approach when it comes to their own children. It helps that Louis is older now, and more distant from his wild youth. He would have felt like a massive hypocrite if he'd given Mia this sort of bluster, and she would have seen through it anyhow. 

For their part, Max and Patrick exchanged a glance, but seemed satisfied with the explanation and didn’t ask any follow-up questions as they were herded off to brush their teeth.)

“Hi there,” Louis says to Amir. “How you feeling?”

Amir grunts and takes a seat next to Patrick.

“Morning,” Patrick chirps.

Amir winces. “Are you all always this loud?”

“GOOD MORNIN’ SON,” Louis shouts at him.

“D’YOU HAVE A HEADACHE?” Liam yells from the kitchen.

Amir puts his head down on the table, groaning.

Sunday flicks him in the ear as she goes by. “BYE GUYS,” she calls over her shoulder on her way out. “I’LL BE HOME AROUND LIKE FOUR —“

“Okay, thanks!” Amir yells. “Got it, very funny!”

Next to him, Patrick is giggling.

“I left some Advil next to your bed,” Louis says, “you see them?”

“Yeah, I took them,” Amir mutters. “Haven’t kicked in yet.”

“You should eat something. And drink some water.”

“I’ll try,” he says. He lifts his watch and shoots a quick glance at it, then flicks it back off, looking disappointed.

 

*

 

Louis calls Zayn after breakfast. He goes out on the patio with a cup of tea and a cigarette and sits there for a bit, psyching himself up.

He tries to only smoke when he really needs it, these days, which (with five kids to worry over) ends up being once every few months.

It’s getting close to noon, the sun hanging high and hazy in the sky. Last night had been unusually cool, and dew is rising off the grass in a foggy steam as it bakes.

“‘Lo,” Zayn’s low, sleepy voice greets him.

“Hi there,” Louis says, ashing with a practiced flick of his fingers. “Need to talk to you about sonny boy.”

“Oh shit. That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not.”

“Alright, hang on. Lemme —“ There’s some muffled shuffling and low talking, and then Zayn mutes the line. A minute later, he comes back on. “Sorry. Me and Harry are at the park with the girls.”

“You good to talk?”

“Uh-huh. Sittin’ in the car. Go.”

Louis takes in a drag, then drums his fingers on the glass table he’s sitting at. He has his watch sat in front of him on speakerphone; he stares at it for a moment before he resumes.

“Amir went to a party last night,” he says. “He broke curfew, again.”

“By how much?”

“Forty-five minutes.”

“Lou, that’s not that bad —“

“I’m not finished.”

Zayn goes silent.

“His friends brought him back completely fucked up. Liam found ‘im in the hallway in a puddle of puke, barely conscious. He took molly, and then I guess he went in a hot tub after and drank, and he ended up overheated. Like, could have seriously fucked himself up overheated.”

“Shit,” Zayn says. “Since when’s he fuckin’ doing party drugs?”

“It’s a new development, as far as I know.”

“Shit.”

“I know.” He smokes some more.

“You talk to him yet?”

“No, I was hoping we could go at him together.”

“Oh, Lou, I don’t think I can come by today... We’ve got all this stuff planned with the girls, trying to get them adjusted to bein’ back home—“

“Zayn,” Louis says sharply.

“I get it, I do.”

“You know why he’s mardy with you —“

“I know! I didn’t mean to not be around! I didn’t _want_ to not be around! But I can’t, y’know, just — I promised —“

“Look, bro, I try not to pull the ex card with you very often, but I need some backup here, seriously. They can get along a few hours without you. Harry’s been skiving on parenting all this year —“

“That’s not fair,” Zayn snaps.

“Not fair?” Louis repeats, incredulous. “You said that yourself!”

“In confidence, out of frustration, not for you to turn around and throw in my face!”

“Fine,” Louis cuts him off. “I’ll talk to him alone today. Maybe I’ll get _Liam_ to help, actually.”

“Oh, don’t go there,” Zayn says nastily. “Don’t even.”

“Then get your arse over here!”

Zayn sighs through his nose. “I was gonna get dinner with him and Yasmeen later this week, why don’t I bump it up to tomorrow? I can pick him up at yours, give us a chance to talk.”

“Is Mia even free?”

“Yeah, she hasn’t got Monday practice, right? And no night classes… Honestly, she can probably get through to ‘im better than either of us.”

Louis knows he’s right, so he sits there in stony silence, smoking.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll let him know.”

“I can give him a ring if you want,” Zayn says, “but it’s not like he’s gonna want to speak to me, anyway.”

“He’s just hurt.”

“I _get_ that! Fuck!”

“What’s with you?” Louis says, taken aback by the depth of frustration and bitterness in his voice. “Why are you so defensive today?”

Zayn is silent for a few moments.

“It’s nothing,” he mutters. “I’m just going through some shit. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a dick.”

“Me either,” Louis says.

“Alright. Let me know what he says about dinner, yeah?”

“Okay.”

Louis hangs up and sits there, drinking his lukewarm tea.

 

*

 

He finds Amir in the foyer, half-hanging out of the front door, tugging a package free from the robotic clutches of an Amazon drone that’s hovering on the step.

Amir turns with it tucked under his arm, then spots Louis and pales.

“What’s that?” Louis says.

“Nothing,” Amir mutters, slouching and flicking his gaze away.

“Give it to me,” Louis says. His protective parent radar is going absolutely wild, but he tries to stay calm.

“No,” Amir begs. “Please, Dad, seriously, just —“

Louis holds his hand out. Amir hands him the package.

He tears it open, turns it on his side and dumps what’s inside into his hand. It’s a slim lavender box that reads in delicate lettering on the front: _PLAN B ONE STEP. Levonorgestrel 1.5 mg. Emergency contraceptive._

Louis’ mouth dries out, and his heart starts pounding. “Kiddo,” he says, his voice barely a whisper.

“Please don’t make a big deal out of it —”

“What happened last night?”

Amir pushes his dark hair off his forehead and stares fiercely at the floor. “Fucking nothing,” he says. “I just made a mistake, I forgot to — I forgot.”

“C’mere,” Louis says. He approaches him and wraps an arm around his shoulder.

Amir doesn’t resist; he lets himself be led to the kitchen.

Louis peeks into the dining room so he can get a view of the back garden through the glass wall. Liam is out there, playing with the twins. He wishes briefly that things weren’t so grim today, that he could join them, go be with them in the California sunshine.

Amir settles down at the nook in the kitchen. Louis pours a glass of water from the fridge and joins him, then pops the little white pill free from its foil packaging and sets it on the table in front of him. He picks up the list of side effects and contraindicated medication and scans them before he mutters, “Alright, go on and take it.”

“Should —”

“Take it,” Louis says, his voice rising. “It gets less effective the longer you — just take it.”

Amir dry swallows the pill, chasing it with water and coughing a bit.

They sit there in silence. Louis tries to work through his thoughts.

“Are you pissed?” Amir says, eyeing him warily.

He sighs. “I mean, I’m confused... And I’m disappointed, ‘cos we’ve talked about safe sex, and we’ve talked about drugs, and we’ve talked about your curfew. I’m starting to get worried about you.”

“I’m sorry,” Amir mutters. He looks down at the table and starts picking at the edge of it. “I was really high. I didn’t even realize he didn’t put a condom on ‘til I woke up this morning and stuff started coming back to me.”

Rage billows up in Louis’ chest. “Who’s this guy fuckin’ you without a condom?”

Amir says nothing. His eyes get wet again.

“Hey, hey,” he says, much more gently. “Did you _want_ to have sex, last night?”

“Yes!” he cries. “Yeah, it wasn’t like _that_ , it was just — I slept with him a few times over the summer, and he just dumped me last night, alright? He told me he’s getting serious with some girl, so —“

“Who is he?”

“Just a guy…”

“Schoolmate?”

“No,” Amir mutters, “he’s in college… he’s my friend Nicole’s brother.”

The protective parent radar pings more violently. “College? How old is he?”

Amir says nothing, but his jaw tightens.

“How old?”

“Twenty-one.”

Louis feels, in that moment, like he might be capable of murder. “ _Twenty-one_? Some twenty-one year old fucked my underage son without a condom when he was high out of his fuckin’ mind on ecstasy?”

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you!” Amir shouts, finally looking up, his cheeks pink. A tear rolls down his cheek.

Louis gets up and fetches him a tissue, handing it to over wordlessly.

“Did he pressure you?” he says.

“No! I wanted it! I was always the — I wanted to do it, alright, I went after _him_ this summer, I promise. There wasn’t anything sus or fucked up about it.”

He swallows down his parental terror. “Alright.”

“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” Amir says, swiping his eyes like he’s angry at them for producing tears. “He dumped me, I don’t give a fuck, I don’t ever want to see him again. He’s a fucking loser.”

Louis is massively relieved to hear this, although he tries not to show it. “So — that happened, then you drank and got in the hot tub?”

Amir nods.

Louis aches for him. “Amir…”

“It’s whatever. I know I fucked up last night, alright?” His voice cracks. “I learned my lesson. I felt so shitty, and I kept throwing up all night, and I feel like shit right now, even, I just wanted to get this — the pill taken care of so I could go back to bed — I’m sorry about everything, ground me or whatever the fuck, it’s fine, I’m just like, so tired —“

“It’s normal,” Louis says gently, “after you do those kinds of drugs… it brings you down really hard the next day.”

Amir sniffles. “Have you done it?” he says, glancing up.

Louis nods.

“Right.” He stares at the crumpled tissue clenched in his fist. “Um. So. If the pill doesn’t, like…”

Louis’ heart drops into his gut. “It’ll work,” he says. He picks the box back up and scans it again. “Says it’s ninety-seven percent effective.”

“Right,” Amir murmurs, “but if I, y’know.”

“I’ll take you, if you ever need a… We’d get it taken care of. No worries.”

Louis can’t even get himself to form the word abortion. This entire conversation is so surreal; Amir has never confided in him about dating, not the way Mia does. Louis had no idea he’d started having sex. Zayn couldn’t have known, either, because he’d have passed that information along.

Maybe Mia knew. They have a sibling code of silence between them. He can’t imagine, though, that she knew he was sleeping with a twenty-one-year-old — she’s as protective of Amir as a parent, this is the sort of thing she’d go ballistic over.

“Okay,” Amir says in a subdued, clipped voice. They might as well be having a bank transaction, for how much emotion he’s expressing over his father’s offer to drive him to his hypothetical abortion. “Thanks.”

“Amir… you can’t be having sex without a condom, okay? You really can’t. Pregnancy aside… you can get a disease, alright? There’s all this antibiotic-resistant shit out there now… How many times did I have this talk with you and Mims? Keep protection on you, don’t rely on other people. I raised you smarter than this.”

“I _know_ ,” Amir says miserably. “I know. It was a mistake. It won’t happen again, I’m not gonna let it.”

“Alright,” Louis relents, thinking he ought to quit while he’s ahead, here.

“I feel like you’re being really hard on me,” Amir says, looking away from him again, “when you did all the same kind of shit —”

“‘Scuse me?”

“You just said you did molly! And you got pregnant young —”

“Hang on,” Louis says, holding up a flat hand. “You stop right there. I got pregnant at twenty-three years old. I was young, yeah, but I was a grown man with an established career and millions of dollars, I had the means and the maturity to raise a baby. You’re a kid, Amir. You are under my roof, still. And as to what kind of drugs I did back then, d’you think I ever look back on any of it, like, ‘Thank God! That added so much fuckin’ value to my life!’ No! Those sorts of drugs are a stupid diversion from the things that matter, and you are too smart and too talented and too special to be messin’ around, doin’ the same bullshit me and your dad did as kids! You’re so much smarter than either of us ever were, and I want more for you!”

“Okay, okay!”

“It’s not worth it. This party boy shit, none of it is worth it, I promise you.”

“I _get_ it!”

Louis rubs at his eyes. “I’m just worried about you.”

“Don’t be,” Amir begs him. “Don’t. I’ll stick to weed and beer, okay?”

Louis swallows past the lump in his throat. “You want a hug?”

Amir does some mix of a shrug and a nod and gets to his feet. Louis comes around the table, wrapping his arms around him, holding him tight.

“Can I ask you something?” Amir says in a small voice.

“Sure.”

“I know you had the money, and stuff, but… why did you keep me?”

Louis’ heart skips a beat, and he pulls back from his son. “I wanted to,” he says.

“Why, though?” Amir says. “I don’t get it. I feel like I wouldn’t’ve kept me if I were you. Or kept Mia, even. I know you had all that shit going on, and like, how you might’ve had to do it alone, or whatever.”

“Do you talk about this, you and her?”

He shrugs. “Once in a while.”

“Look… I’m not gonna pretend it was an easy decision, either time,” Louis says. “Or something I did lightly. I’m not gonna pretend that’s what I had envisioned for my life, or that I was ready to be a dad. But I wanted you both… once the dust settled, and I had time to think about it, I knew I wanted you.”

“I thought you said you were ready.”

“No, I said I was old enough and had the resources. There’s a difference.”

“So, wanting to keep us... it was just a feeling you had?”

“‘Course it was,” Louis says. “What d’you think I had to go off of, besides me feelings?”

Amir shrugs. “I guess what everyone else thought?”

“At the end of the day I had to look past all that. It might’ve been simpler if I could’ve just let that decide things for me, but I couldn’t. It was my body, and my life. I had to go with what was in my heart.”

“But, like…” He hesitates. “When you kept me...”

“Yeah?”

“Did you do it to keep things good with you and Dad?”

He has to laugh at this, even though it stings, even though it cuts closer to the truth than Louis would like. “A kid’s the toughest thing in the world on a relationship, love, so no. No, I did it ‘cos of how I felt.”

“You wanting me?”

“Yeah, I wanted you.” Louis clears his throat. “I want you to know that your dad wanted you, too. He loved you both before he met you.”

“But, like — did you feel like you had to get married to him because of me?”

“No, no,” he says softly. “I didn’t _have_ to marry your dad in any sense of the word. I wanted to marry your dad. I loved ‘im, and I wanted the four of us to be a family. And Zayn wanted that, too, he wanted that stability.”

Amir gets a funny look on his face that Louis can’t quite parse. But all he says is, “I’m sorry about last night.”

“It’s alright.”

“How alright is it?”

“I mean, there’s gonna be consequences. You’re grounded for a month, to start.”

“A _month_? Why?”

“Oh, I dunno,” Louis says airily, “breaking curfew again, doing drugs?”

“Seriously?”

“Keep sassing me and I’ll make it longer.”

“But I don’t have school! You just want me stuck in the house all day?”

“No, you can have your pals over here, if you like, and you can do something productive with your time, like do some charity work with me, but you’re not going to any fuckin’ parties for a month. At least that long. Me and your dad will re-evaluate when it’s time.”

“What’s he got to do with this?” Amir challenges.

“Plenty! I talked to him, he knows what happened last night, and he wants to have a chat with you when he picks you up for dinner tomorrow.”

“Dinner?”

“Yeah. You, him and Mims.”

Amir seems to relax at the mention of Mia. “Alright, fine.”

“Listen,” Louis says, “the side effects of the, um. That pill. ‘S’like, nausea, fatigue, things like that… I know you’re already not feeling great, so if you want to go lie down…”

Amir moves to slip away, but Louis grabs him by his sleeve.

“Listen,” he says. “I want the best for you, always, and you know that. Everything I do is ‘cos of that.”

“Thanks for not yelling at me as much as I can tell you wanted to,” Amir says with a wry smile.

“I never _want_ to yell at you.”

“I know.”

“You know…” He inhales with difficulty. “Ah… I, y’know, I fucked around with an older boy when I was your age, a little bit.”

Amir looks surprised. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. And I had a scare, too.”

“I didn’t know.”

“‘Course you didn’t. I’m just saying, I understand. I’m not blaming you for what happened. But it’s not okay of him, you know that? To play it fast and loose with a high school kid like that? I mean, back then, we didn’t think as much of it, but now… I know you’re smart, I know you feel like you’re an adult, but when it comes to certain things, you’re still a kid for now.”

“I don’t think of it like that.”

“I know you don’t, but I do. That’s why I’m the dad. Look, I’m glad that even if you got carried away last night, you took precautions this morning.”

He shrugs. “I mean, I don’t want to get pregnant.”

Louis rubs his shoulder bracingly. “You’re not gonna,” he says, voice firm.

“It’s not fair,” Amir mutters. “I wish I didn’t have to worry about it.”

“You might feel differently,” Louis says, “when you’re older, about being an omega… you might feel like it’s actually sort of special to be have the option.”

“That how you feel?”

“Yeah,” Louis says. “I mean, I… yeah. I don’t want to, like, give you the wrong impression — it’s very difficult, and it should be the right time, with the right person, but in the end I’m glad I got the chance.”

He can’t help but keep thinking of being pregnant with Amir, now. And all the hopes and dreams he had for his first son, all the curiosity that lived under his skin. Who would he be, what would he do?

He started to love Amir late at night, when he was trying to fall asleep, when Zayn was curled up next to him like a bony cat and Mia was snoozing lightly in her crib a few feet away. Louis would lie there in the pitch dark and consider it. He’d touch his tummy before it had had the chance to swell, and he’d imagine growing a person again, he’d imagine holding another sweet little baby with Zayn’s dark hair.

In a flash Amir was that baby, struggling to breathe at birth and being ripped from Louis’ arms, then a shy toddler clinging to him, and then, just like that, he’d grown up. He’d turned into this handsome, sullen slip of a boy that’s standing here, telling Louis about how the world has already done him wrong. Ripped from his arms again.

Louis reins in his emotions.

“I didn’t know you were, y’know, active,” he says. “But we can get you on a pill, if you’d like. Just in case.”

“I think I just wanna be a monk for a while, honestly.”

Louis laughs. “Alright. Just please _talk_ to me about this shit? Ask your sister, she’ll tell you I don’t judge, I don’t bitch or make a big deal, I just want to know these things so I can keep you safe. I don’t need every little detail, I just need to know what’s goin’ on.”

“Sorry,” Amir says. “I just hate talking about stuff like that… it’s not like I mean to keep it from you.”

“I know.”

“Can you, um.” He hesitates. “Don’t tell anyone else about the Plan B, okay? Please? Not Dad or Mia or Liam? I know you feel like you have to tell Dad about stuff like that, but he wouldn’t get it, y’know?”

Louis studies him for a moment, then nods. “Alright, I won’t. It’s between us.”

“Thanks… I’m gonna go lie down, now.”

“Go on. Get some rest. And hey —”

Amir turns back to him.

“Stay away from cocaine, alright?” Louis says. “That’s one thing I want you to promise me.”

He puts his hands up in mock-surrender and gives Louis one of his sweet smiles. They’re rarer these days. “Okay, Dad. No coke.”

Louis watches him go, then walks into the hall and pushes the patio doors open, walking across the deck and down into the soft, bright grass.

“Oi,” Liam shouts at him from the garden. He’s kneeling in the dirt, pruning his tomato plants; the twins are having a swordfight with tomato sticks.

“Hi loves,” Louis calls back.

He comes over and takes a seat next to Liam, watching him. Louis likes to watch him work with his hands, especially back here. He gets all sweaty and dirty, his muscles standing out on his arms and in his chest.

Actually, Louis watching him garden has ended up in them having sex more than a few times, although Liam instituted a “grass only” policy after some particularly frantic fucking caused them to crush half of an azalea bush.

Liam eyes him. “Hi.”

“Hey, love.”

“What’s up?”

Louis exhales. “I called Zayn, and it was like pulling teeth to get him to give me some backup, here. After he’s been gone all this time. And I didn’t fucking run my mouth about that, did I? I’ve been really understanding?”

“Very understanding,” Liam agrees.

He smacks a mosquito that’s lighted on his arm. “I hate that he’s still making me do this, like, come in and be the heavy, the bitch. I thought we’d moved past all that.”

Liam clips a branch. “Sometimes people backslide a bit.”

“I’m sick of it! When do I get to backslide? When ‘ave I got the luxury?”

“Be fair,” Liam says in a gentle voice.

“I’m trying. I’m just —“ He waves his hands around. “Shit morning.”

“Yeah, I was gonna ask… everything okay with Amir? Saw you two talking in the nook for a while.”

Louis sighs. “Yeah. He’s apparently been having it off with some twenty-one year old bloke, who dumped him last night.”

Liam’s eyes grow wide as saucers. “You’re fucking kidding.”

“Wish I was, Payno.”

“He’s seventeen, he’s not even legal!”

“I know,” he says wearily.

Liam tosses a branch into a little pile he’s making. “But it’s over, you said?”

“Seems to be. I’m just going a bit crazy, here. I mean, he’s eighteen in six months, I’ve got to trust him to make his own decisions by now… he just seems bound and fuckin’ determined to repeat all the dumbest shit I did. I keep thinking of what I’d want to be told, back then, how I’d want to be talked to, but I dunno. Even when I was fucking up, I told me mum everything. Absolutely everythin’. He barely opens up. The shit he told me just now was the most he has in a while.”

“He’s just a different personality type,” Liam says. “Doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.”

“I know. I just can’t shake the feeling something else is goin’ on with him.”

“You don’t think…” Liam trails off delicately. “Maybe he could have what Zayn’s got? The bipolar?”

Louis shrugs helplessly. “No idea.”

Max nails Patrick in the eye with his tomato stick, then. Patrick wails in pain and retaliates by socking Max in the chest; this devolves into a violent scuffle that Louis and Liam have to physically intervene in. By the time they’ve gotten the twins calmed down and apologizing to each other, they’ve totally lost the thread of what they were talking about.


	2. Chapter 2

CALABASAS, OCTOBER 23, 2034

Amir waits for Zayn on the front steps, watching the palm trees that line the driveway as they sway against the night sky.

He’s ten minutes late; he rolls up in his Maybach and cuts the headlights. Amir stands to go get in, but Zayn gets out and walks around the front of the car, coming toward him.

He looks a bit different than when Amir last saw him. He’s buzzed his hair recently, and he’s lost weight, maybe — he looks gaunt in the face. There’s more gray at his temples now than there was in the spring.

“Hey,” Zayn says when he gets close, then pulls Amir into his arms and hugs him tightly.

“Hi, Dad.”

Zayn reaches up and tousles his hair. “Missed you.”

“Missed you too,” Amir says, clinging to the back of his jacket.

He feels like a little kid, and he’s embarrassed and frustrated by it, because his chest is still burning with betrayal from what Mia told him. But he can’t help it. He’s always hero-worshiped Zayn. Even now, when that hero-worship has recently become painful.

“Ready for sushi?” Zayn says.

Amir draws back. The Plan B combined with his hangover had him holed up in his bathroom throwing up for most of the previous afternoon, and the nausea has lingered. That and the sickening urge to snap at Zayn, “Why did you cheat on Dad?” or “Why haven’t you been there for me for the last six months?” are really ruining his appetite.

He nods, though. “Yeah.”

 

*

 

They don’t talk much in the car. Zayn tries it; he goes, “So what ‘appened at this party?” but Amir shuts down and stonewalls him.

“Me and Louis just want you safe and making good decisions,” Zayn says, glancing over at him.

Amir picks at a crease in the detailing on the door. “I know.”

“It seems like you don’t, though.”

“I’m grounded for a month, what d’you want from me?”

“You’re grounded at my house, too, by the way,” Zayn says.

“I know!”

“I get you’re getting to an age where you want to experiment with this shit, but you need to take it more seriously than this, Amir. You can’t take these kinds of drugs, like, wivout a care in the world.”

“I didn’t,” he says hotly.

“It seems like you did,” Zayn replies.

Amir stares out the window. Trees and mansions roll by, all alike, all the same.

“You also need to be aware of the fact that I’m an addict,” Zayn says, “and you’re at a higher risk because of that.”

Amir glances over at him. “But you’re not an addict, you’re an alcoholic.”

“I was addicted to alcohol. I _am_ addicted to alcohol. Medically, it’s the same thing.”

“I didn’t know that.”

Zayn hits the self-driving button, and the car takes over for him as he digs something out of his shirt pocket.

He drops it into Amir’s hand. It’s a sobriety chip. Thirteen years sober.

“You remember when I was in rehab?”

“Not really,” Amir says.

“I missed your sister’s first day of kindergarten.”

He recalls a foggy, distant memory, then: trying to crawl into Louis’ lap on the couch while Louis talked to his aunt Lottie. Lottie saying, “Is Zayn gonna be back before they start school?” and Louis whispering, “Don’t think so.”

“Kind of like how you missed her moving into college?” Amir says.

“Hey,” Zayn snaps, “that was different, and that’s not yours to bust my arse about. She’s a big girl, we discussed it, she understood.”

Amir hands him the chip back. Zayn glances over at him.

“I’m sorry I’ve been gone,” he says. “But I asked you before I left to please not make any trouble for Louis.”

“I’m not _making trouble_.”

“You scared the shit out of him the other night.”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“And you’ve been missin’ curfew.”

“It’s a dumb curfew! I’m not even in school!”

“I don’t care! You’re seventeen, and we make the rules! Your curfew’s your curfew!”

“Whatever...” Amir slumps harder against the door, furious at Zayn, wanting so badly to snarl _I know what you did_ at him.

Zayn reaches over and squeezes his shoulder. “I just need you to know, you’ve got to be careful with this shit. Maybe more careful than your friends.”

“Yeah. I get it.”

 

*

 

They’re already sat down in their usual booth at Nobu by the time Mia arrives. She notices they’ve gone ahead and ordered appetizers, and tries not to be offended; she knows she’s reliably late.

“Hi there,” she says, settling into the seat across from them. The restaurant is hectic and bustling, which is good. They probably won’t be overheard or bothered by anyone wanting a selfie with their dad.

“Hi sweetheart,” Zayn says, smiling.

Amir gives her a sarcastically whimsical little wave. He looks like hell.

“How you feeling?” she says to him. He had texted her the day before with the bare details about the party. She was worried, but doesn’t want to press too hard. If you push Amir, he’ll shoot right back out of your hands like a wet bar of soap.

Amir shrugs. “I’m alright.” He glances at Zayn. “No ‘missed you’ for Mia?”

Mia and Zayn exchange a look.

“I swung by his last week,” she admits. “Popped in to see them and the girls.”

Amir looks like he feels betrayed, but maybe he’s aware this is an unfair reaction, because he says nothing.

Their waiter comes by, then, and she says, “Can we get some edamame?”

“Yes ma’am,” he says, and hustles away.

Zayn folds his arms, a Rolex gleaming on his wrist. “So how’s school?”

Mia then talks at length about her classes, because Zayn is genuinely interested, and Amir isn’t exactly interjecting with his own conversation topics. When she’s exhausted that, she moves on to telling them about soccer.

“I actually might start in our next home game,” she says, “which is, like, really exciting. I’m the first freshman this year that’s gonna start. We’ve just been subbing in so far. I mean, it’s not as big a deal at D as at forward, and I’m not Mal Pugh or anything, but...”

“No, that’s fantastic, Yasmeen,” Zayn says. “You’ve been playing well, you earned it.”

“I hope so.”

“Hey. You did.”

“I’m sort of afraid I’m gonna get in and immediately fuck up.”

He flaps his hand. “Don’t think like that. Visualize success.”

She laughs. Amir is quiet, still, and looks lost in his thoughts. He’s drawing a face in the frost on his ice water.

Mia glances between them. “Are you guys okay?”

They both look bemusedly back at her.

“Why?” Amir says

“‘Cos I’m the only one talking, and the only one eating…” She gestures to their plates. “And Dad shaved his head again, which he always does when he’s going through some shit —”

Zayn runs his hand over his head. “That’s not true,” he insists. “I just like it shaved, I’m not — I’m fine.”

“I’m fine too,” Amir says grimly, and stabs his fork into an edamame bean.

“Okay, that’s not even how you eat edamame,” Mia says.

Amir stares her down as he puts the entire pod in his mouth.

“That’s kind of disgusting — I mean, do what you want —“

He chews it.

“Amir,” Zayn says, sounding exasperated.

After half a minute of silent, spiteful chewing, Amir gives up and spits the pod into a napkin. Zayn turns away, discreetly dry heaving into his sleeve.

“ _Dad_ ,” Mia says. She knows he only gags like that when he’s anxious.

“‘M fine,” Zayn mutters. “Don’t worry about me.” He gets up, then, sliding out of the booth. “I’m gonna go have a smoke, actually, I’ll be right back.”

Amir stares impassively at his back as he walks away.

“The fuck is going on with you?” Mia hisses.

He scoffs. “Fuck off. You’re the one who told me that fucking — what you told me! And then told me I couldn’t talk about it to anyone!”

“You can talk to _me_!”

“You’re off at uni, you’re always in class or practice —“

“Well, excuse me for trying to make something of my life!” Out of the corner of her eye, Mia notices a guy a few tables away trying to snap a discreet photo of them, and she rounds on him. “Hi, can you not, you fucking weirdo?”

All the blood drains from his face. “Sorry,” he mumbles, dropping his wrist.

She turns back to Amir. “Can you just act normal with Dad, please? He doesn’t know why you’re mad at him!”

“I _am_ acting normal!”

“You’re not! You’re being completely insane, right now!”

“That’s ableism,” Amir drawls. “You shouldn’t say shit like that, it’s rude to the insane.”

“Oh, I am gonna kill you.”

The waiter comes by with a long tray of sushi, then, and deposits it in the middle of the table.

“Have a yellowtail,” Mia suggests, holding one up with her chopsticks.

Now it’s Amir’s turn to dry-heave.

“Oh my God,” she says. “What is wrong with you two? This is why you weigh like two hundred pounds combined.”

“Sorry,” he snaps, “we can’t all be _athletes_ —“

“What does _that_ have to do with anything?”

“I don’t know! I’m in a shitty mood and I want to go home!”

“Well, _I_ had a long, crappy day, and _I_ want to have a nice family dinner! The three of us haven’t been together since May!”

“Who cares?”

“What happened at that party? Why are you so tweaked?”

“Nothing!”

They sit there in angry silence until Zayn gets back, smelling like smoke.

“Hey,” he says, slipping back into his chair.

“Sushi’s here,” Mia says unnecessarily, and gestures to it like she’s a model on _The Price Is Right_ showing off a car.

Zayn laughs. “I’ll have some, love, relax.”

“So,” she says, piling a few pieces onto her own plate, “how’s Harry?”

Zayn shrugs. “You just saw him.”

“I know, but like — anything going on, or?”

He becomes very stone-faced at this. “Nah.”

Mia glances between the two of them again. “Sorry, didn’t realize every topic in the universe was blacklisted tonight.”

“Off-limits,” Amir mumbles. “Normal people say off-limits.”

“Nothing’s off-limits,” Zayn says, “I just don’t have any news.”

“When’s his movie come out?”

“Next year.”

“Is he working on anything else?”

Zayn shrugs. “He was in auditions for something last week.”

“What about music?”

“I think he’s planning to do some things with the band, I dunno anythin’ about any new solo work.”

“What about _your_ music?”

“I’m taking some time off, Yas, you knew that.”

“I know, Dad, I just like to support your career, is all.”

Zayn smiles at her. “When I start on album seven, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Maybe Amir could play on it,” she suggests. “Or sing, even.”

Zayn looks at Amir with a sort of vulnerable expression. “I’d love that,” he says softly.

This backfires. Amir continues staring at his glass of water with a tight jaw while red slowly rises in his cheeks, and then his eyes well up.

“‘Scuse me,” he mutters, tossing his napkin onto his plate and heading off toward the bathroom.

Zayn sighs. “What’s up with him?” he says to Mia.

Mia is quiet for a moment. Obviously she can’t say, _‘I’ve had a lot more time to process you cheating on Dad and causing the divorce than he has_ ,’ so instead she just says, “I think he just, um, had something end badly with someone he was seeing…”

“Yeah, Louis told me something along those lines.” He drums his fingers on the table. “Said it was a boy who was a bit older, too, I didn’t much like hearing _that_.”

“I didn’t know that part,” Mia says, kicking herself. So apparently she’s gone and given Amir full-blown daddy issues; just what every sensitive artist type needs.

Zayn eyes her. “Anything else?”

“Um… I mean, you know he’s upset you’ve been gone. I just think he’s having a little identity crisis lately.”

“I get that, I’m trying to reach out to him,” Zayn says. “‘S’weird, he’s never acted like this with me...”

Mia shrugs. “Thanks for dinner,” she offers, for lack of anything else to say.

Zayn laughs. “Been a bit of a fuckin’ mess, hasn’t it? It’s alright, I accidentally took Harry’s wallet instead of mine, so this is on his dime anyway.”

She laughs. “Christ, Dad…”

“Just being a proper trophy husband,” he says. It comes out a little too bitter to be entirely a joke.

 

*

 

Mia follows them back to Louis’ so she can pop in and visit, which means Zayn drives extra slowly so her car doesn’t lose its Bluetooth connection with his, which means the silence between him and Amir is even more awkward.

“Are you coming to ours, this week?” Zayn says as they’re pulling around the driveway.

The hope in his voice is painful. Amir nods, looking down at his hands in his lap. “Yeah. Pick me up Thursday?”

Zayn seems to relax. “Okay. I will, or Harry will, I’ll let you know.”

Amir opens the door, and Zayn grabs him around the neck, pulling him back in for a kiss on the head.

“Dad,” he says, laughing. “C’mon...”

“I just missed my boy,” he murmurs. “You’re my only son, y’know?”

Amir nods. “I know,” he says, and climbs out of the car. “See you Thursday.”

Behind the Maybach, Mia is getting out of her Audi. She beckons to Amir, who goes over to her, and she slings an arm around his shoulder.

“I just wanna say I’m sorry,” she says as they head up to the house, squinting against the bright pathway lights lining the walkway. “For dropping that bombshell on you.”

Amir shrugs. “It’s whatever.”

“Nah, it’s not, it was shitty. I know you’re more sensitive.”

“I’m not _sensitive_ —“

“It was just so weird carrying that around and knowing you didn’t know.”

Amir waves his watch at the front door, and they head in.

“It’s fine,” he says. “Really, it’s whatever.”

“Alright,” Mia says, looking disbelieving. She sets her bag down on the white marble floor, by the umbrella stand, then bellows: “DAD! OI! DAD!”

“I hear you!” Louis says, coming down the hall, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Christ, you’re loud.” He crosses the foyer and wraps her in a hug; she laughs and squeezes him.

Louis pulls back and grins at her. “How’s my favorite daughter?”

“You know, that joke just gets funnier every time you make it.”

“Oh, let me have my fun. C’mere, both of you. The twins have some of their basketball mates over... they have a tie-dye game next week, so of course they’re tie-dyin’ everything they own.”

“Of course,” Mia says.

Amir wants to go be alone in his room, but he knows he’d feel left out if he did, so he follows Louis and Mia down the hall and into the kitchen.

“Hey, are we definitely doing that Galaxy game on the second?” Mia says to Louis.

“Yeah, yeah! It’s in my calendar.”

“D’you still have the sky box?”

“Like I’m gonna give up the sky box?”

“Just making sure!”

“I wouldn’t give it up for the catering alone,” Louis says, laughing.

In the kitchen, Liam is giving a tie-dyeing seminar to three kids over by the sink, while the twins are in the breakfast nook, mixing at least five different colors of ink into a horrible brown soup. They rush Mia as soon as they see her, tackling her to the floor.

She cackles and rolls around with them. “Hi Liam,” she calls from the floor.

“Hi Mims,” he calls back.

“I missed you two,” Mia says, as Max is tying her sneaker laces together. “My little demons.”

“We miss you too,” Patrick says. “Amir never wants to shoot with us.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “Is that all I’m good for?”

Patrick considers this. “No, you’re alright to play video games with,” he says.

“Why is this my life?” Amir says. “Why am I always getting joaned on by two nine year olds?”

Louis chuckles and squeezes Amir’s shoulder as he moves behind him on his way to the sink. “Payno, any progress?”

“I think me and Brian have got this down to an exact science,” Liam says. “It’s _four_ rubber bands, and you sort of do a serpentine like so...”

A dark-haired boy who Amir supposes is Brian does a double thumbs up.

Amir starts slinking backward, toward the hallway. He isn’t at all in the mood for this kind of happy chaos.

Louis spots him and turns from the sink. “You going to bed?” he calls.

Liam glances over then too. His hand is at the small of Louis’ back, and he’s stroking him in that gross, demonstratively affectionate way they have with each other.

Mia looks up from where she’s sat on the floor trying to undo the knots in her shoelaces. She has concern in her eyes.

“Yeah,” Amir says. He does his best to sound light and casual, despite that the three of them are looking at him like he’s a china cup teetering on the edge of a table.

“Alright,” Louis says, scratching the side of his nose and getting blue on it. “Get some rest.”

Amir nods and slips away.

 

*

 

Mia knocks lightly on Sunday’s door, even though it’s half-ajar. She’s bent in half doing some yoga in the middle of her room, but she immediately snaps upright when she sees Mia, beaming. “Hey! I didn’t know you were home.”

“Just stopping by,” Mia says, coming in and taking a seat on her peach-colored duvet. “Had dinner with my dad and Amir.”

Sunday nods, tucking her lips into her mouth. “Right… right.”

“What, you know something?” Mia says. “Wait, scratch that. Let’s catch up first.”

Sunday laughs and takes a seat on her yoga mat, her ponytail full of curls bouncing. “We don’t have to catch up, seriously, we text all the time.”

“I know, but it’s different than real life.”

Sunday shrugs. “Nothing new with me. I’m just trying to get through the end of the school year.”

“I feel that, believe me.”

“Speaking of… did you have Kettler last year for Gov, by any chance?”

“Ha, yeah, I did. All my essays and tests should be somewhere in my old room, take whatever you need.”

“Thanks, that literally saves my life.”

“Anytime.”

“It was scary, though, the other night,”  Sunday says, her dark eyes widening a little. “I mean, I didn’t think he was gonna _die_ or anything, but…”

Mia’s heart lurches at her even saying that. “What exactly happened? I kinda got the abridged version.”

“I don’t totally know… Max came and woke me up, he was worried because he found Amir in the hallway and he wasn’t responding, I guess. He got Dad, and Dad like, shooed Max away, so he was all upset, he thought Amir was gonna die. So I had to calm him down from that…”

“Jesus.”

“They like, dragged him to the bathroom, and I guess put him in an ice bath? I heard my dad yell something about ice. Then they had their concierge doctor over…” Sunday wraps her arms around her knees, pulling her slim calves to herself. “And he was in there with him for a while.”

Mia drops her face into her hand and rubs at her eyes. “Right. What about yesterday?”

“He was just in his room all day. Is he okay, d’you know?”

She takes a deep breath, then lifts her head. “I think he will be.” Desperate for another topic, she says, “Have I told you about this adult child stuff that my therapist told me about?”

Sunday shakes her head. “Noo… adult child? What’s that mean?”

“Like, being the adult child of an alcoholic, or a depressed parent, or whatever. But I keep thinking of you, with some of the things she says, ‘cos it applies to adult children of narcissists, too.”

“Oh,” Sunday says. Her arms are still wrapped around her legs — the pose makes her look like a little kid. “So, my mom.”

“Yeah. I can send you some stuff to read.”

“I’d like that,” she says shyly. “Thanks.”

“Sure,” Mia says, smiling despite the aching weight that’s settled in her chest.

 

MALIBU, OCTOBER 25, 2034

Harry rings Louis from the farmers’ market while he’s sniffing cantaloupes to see if they’re ripe. He’s expecting to get his voicemail, so when Louis picks up, he nearly drops a cantaloupe on his foot.

“Hey,” he says, repositioning his earpiece. “Good morning.”

“Mornin’,” Louis says. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, all good, why?”

“Just you calling me’s a bit out of the ordinary.”

Harry wanders over to another stall, squinting through the haze of the bright noon sun. “Reckon so,” he says, and picks up some kumquats.

“Hey,” calls the vendor, who doesn’t appear to recognize him. (This is by design — he’s got a hat and sunglasses on.) “Are you going to keep molesting my fruit or are you gonna buy some?”

Harry laughs and stuffs five kumquats in a bag. “These, please,” he says, handing them over. Then to Louis: “Can we meet today?”

“Meet?” Louis says haltingly, like he thinks Harry is trying to murder him. “You and me?”

“Yeah, just us.”

“Nine fifty-eight,” the vendor says.

“For kumquats?” Harry says in amazement.

Louis clears his throat. “Sorry, kumquats?”

“No, no, not you…” He extends his watch so he can be rung up. “I’ll come by yours in an hour if you’re free?”

“Sure. What’s this about?”

“I’ve got something to run by you. The girls are at school, Zayn’s off with his friends, and I’m free, so it seemed like good timing… but are you free? Not busy with work or anything?”

Louis laughs. “Only got four clients, haven’t I? Yeah, I’m free. Come on over.”

“Brilliant.”

 

*

 

Louis greets him at the front door looking tired, dressed down in a sweatshirt and joggers.

“Hey there,” he says.

Harry lifts the bag in his hand. “Want a raspberry?”

“Nah, I’m good, mate. You want a cuppa?”

“Yeah, cheers, why not.”

Harry follows him into the kitchen and settles into the sun splashed breakfast nook, watching as Louis puts on a kettle.

“Where’s Liam?” Harry says.

“With Sunday at a horse thing. The schools here’ve got fall break this week —”

Boyish shouts ring out from the sitting room down the hall.

“So that’ll be the twins?” Harry says.

Louis comes back over to him, pushing his sleeves up and grinning as he sits. “Correct.”

“What about Amir?”

“Still asleep,” he says. “He’s been sleeping ‘til one or two, lately. I reckon he’s entitled, graduated a year early with perfect marks and all that.”

Harry nods. He knows from Zayn that there’s something going on with Amir, lately, but he hasn’t been on active step-dad duty for a while, so he figures it isn’t his place to pry for details.

There’s more shouting, then, and a very loud crash. Harry eyes Louis. “You wanna…?”

“Nah, I try not to get involved unless there’s blood or serious property damage.” Despite what he said earlier, Louis takes a raspberry from the open container sitting in front of Harry and pops it into his mouth. “So what’s up?”

“Well,” Harry says. “It’s a bit awkward, actually...”

Louis’ eyebrows shoot up. “Please hurry up and tell me what it is, ‘cos my imagination is going to some unpleasant places right now.”

“It’s nothing that’d upset _you_ ,” he assures him. “It’s —”

He’s interrupted by the sound of more scuffling from across the hall, then shouts and a heavy something clattering to the floor.

“OI, BOYS,” Louis shouts.

The twins slink guiltily into the kitchen. Harry hasn’t seen them in quite a while, but they’re as boyish as ever, not quite into their gawky phase yet. Even though they’re fraternal, he still sometimes can’t tell them apart at first glance — they’re similar facially, with matching heads of  floppy brown hair, and so in sync with each other.

But Max has those unique eyes, and Patrick has Liam’s eyes, just with Louis’ twinkle of mischief in them.

“Us?” Max says innocently.

“No, the other boys I was in labor for twenty hours with,” Louis says with a grin. “Can you do me a favor, loves, and go play down the street or something?”

Max shrugs. “We were this morning, but Alex’s family went to Knotts, and Shaun is being annoying, and Penelope’s grounded, and Jake is sick —“

“Got it,” Louis cuts in. “Could you play quietly upstairs, or at least go in the back garden? Me and your uncle Harry are having a chat, here.”

Patrick eyes Harry. “Hi.”

Harry gives them both a little wave. “Hullo boys.”

“You’re not _really_ our uncle, right?” Patrick says.

“No,” Harry says, smiling, “not quite.”

“Wait, he’s married to Mia and Amir’s dad,” Max says. He says their names in a rush, _MeeandAmeer_ , like they’re a single entity. “So that makes him our uncle.”

“No, dummy, they’re not our _cousins_ ,” Patrick says. “It makes him, like, a spare dad, or something.”

Louis gets quite a laugh out of this. “Spare dad? Like a spare tire?”

Max nods in affirmation.

“He’s family, that’s all you need to know,” Louis says. “Alright, run along, youse…”

He swats Patrick gently, and the twins chase each other out of the room, seeming relieved to be freed from the pressure of making polite conversation. Harry hears the patio door squeak open, then slam shut.

Louis lets out a sigh that tails into a chuckle.

“That’s sweet,” Harry says, his lips quirking up a little. “That I’m family.”

“‘Course, Jesus, you’re the dad of me kids’ siblings, you’re in the band, what else would you be?”

Harry smiles wider.

“Quit looking at me like that,” Louis says, laughing.

“Like what?”

“That face you make at me, like you feel sorry for me or something.”

“That’s not what that is!”

“What is it, then?”

Harry struggles for an appropriate word. “Just, like... affection!”

“Oh, alright,” Louis says amiably.

“I can’t believe you thought that face was _pity_. I’m offended, quite honestly...”

Louis finally returns his smile. “So where were we, then?”

“Well,” Harry says.

The kettle goes off.

“Alright, alright,” Louis says to it as he gets back up.

Harry exhales softly. He really wants to just get this over with.

Louis takes his time making the tea, though, then spends a half minute or so in the pantry looking for biscuits. Harry starts to bounce his leg as he waits.

“Got ‘em,” he calls, and comes back in with a sleeve of them. He brings their tea over and sits across from Harry. “Alright. Shoot.”

“So,” Harry says.

“Not pregnant, are you?” Louis interrupts. “No, can’t be, right? That wouldn’t be awkward —"

“I’m not pregnant, no,” Harry interrupts him back, then drums his fingers on the table. “I had an audition last week.”

“Alright.”

“And I’ve just gotten a call in this morning that I’ve got the part, if I want it.” Harry gnaws at his lip. “The only problem is, it’s like, this, ah… it’s about a troubled couple, and that’s really the only thing it’s about, just their relationship…”

Louis squints at him.

“Like, there’s loads of intense sex,” he says, leg bouncing more furiously. “Things like that. But it’s really, ah… a great script, like Oscar-worthy. Great director attached. I think it could be fantastic for my career.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“They already cast the female lead. And, uh, it’s, uh, Cecilia.”

Louis barks out a laugh. “No shit? _Payno’s_ Cecilia?”

“That one, yeah,” Harry says. “I didn’t want to tell anyone ‘til it was a sure thing, in case it fell through. But we’ve read together a few times already.”

Louis eats several biscuits very fast, dipping them in his tea at first and then giving up on that and just pounding them dry.

“Huh,” he says, staring out the window with a contemplative look. “You’d have to have like, dirty sex with Liam’s ex, and Sunday’s mum, on-screen?”

“Yeah, I mean, like, faked… I’m an actor, not a porn star.”

“I got _that_. So this is a done deal, then?”

“No, not yet, we have to do some more chemistry tests.”

“What if your chemistry’s shit?”

“Then they recast one of us. But it’s been good so far.”

“Any chance you can get her fired?”

Harry laughs. “Louis…”

He puts his hands up. “Joke.”

“I’m actually sort of excited to work with her, she’s really talented.”

Louis lets out a sigh.

“But,” he adds, “if Liam has a problem with it, I’ll walk, no questions asked.”

“No, Liam wouldn’t want that.”

“So he won’t have a problem?”

“I mean, he’s definitely gonna have a problem,” Louis says, “but knowing him, he wouldn’t want you to back out, no.”

Harry sips his tea. Louis mulls for a while.

“She’s your husband’s ex-husband’s husband’s ex-wife,” he says in amusement. “There’s a mouthful.”

“I think we’ll go with bandmate’s ex-wife, bit neater.”

“Speaking of bandmates, Niall’s gonna take the piss out of you so hard, you do realize?”

“Oh, fuck,” he says with a laugh. “Any chance you could put off mentioning it to him ‘til after the meeting?”

“No chance, sorry,” Louis says. “This is too funny, I need his reaction.”

“Hey, I did want to ask, also…” He runs his finger along his teacup handle. “Is it gonna bother Sunday?”

“Some, I’m sure, but I don’t think it’ll be too bad. I dunno, you’re not _actually_ fuckin’ her mum, so.”

“I just really don’t want to cause any stress for them with this.”

“Look, it’s only a film.”

“We’re gonna have to do a press tour together, too,” Harry says. “Like joke around, and pretend we get on. It’s just a job. I won’t mean any of it.”

“You should do it. Get your Oscar, your Golden Man.”

“Golden Globe?”

“Golden Globe.” Louis eats another biscuit. “But I can run it by him if you like, let you know what he says, and how Sunday feels.”

“That’d be great, thank you.” Harry’s felt much too awkward about the situation to directly approach Liam. And besides that, he knows Liam would hedge on his real feelings about it in a way Louis never would.

“Sure.”

“So how are you doing? Sorry, I just sort of jumped straight into this shit.”

He shrugs. “I’m alright.”

“How’re you and Liam?”

Louis smiles. His happiness is obvious. “Really good, actually.”

“Yeah? I know things were a bit tough for you two for a while, with the twins and then having three kids in secondary...”

“Y’know, they were, but since we got Mims off to uni, we’ve been making more time for each other, working on us, all that. Gone on a few little holidays and things. We’re really just hitting our stride now, I think.” He toys with his wedding band, still smiling. “It’s nice. Feels good.”

“That’s great to hear,” Harry says, though he can’t help being a bit jealous.

“And how are you, mate?”

“Good, good.”

“How’s things with our baby daddy?”

Harry laughs. “Fine. Um… yeah, fine.”

Louis tilts his head curiously.

Harry looks out the window into the back garden, working his jaw. There’s birds fluttering around a feeder a few feet away; he stares at them until he’s past seeing. He wants desperately to ask Louis for his input on Zayn, but it’s so embarrassing, and they really don’t have that kind of relationship.

“Hey,” Louis says gently.

Harry inhales and takes a sip of his tea. “It’s actually been sort of tense between us lately,” he says, then more quickly than he ever says anything: “And he’s having, some, um, erectile dysfunction.”

Louis chuckles in surprise. “Ohh, alright... That happens with ‘im sometimes, though, doesn’t it?”

Harry’s brow knits. “This is the first time,” he says. “For me, anyway.”

“Really? ‘Cos he had it when we first got together, and then once in a while after that, although that might’ve been the drinking…”

“Hang on,” Harry says. “He had this at twenty-two?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, nodding. “Yeah, back when we, y’know, hooked up, he was limpdick a lot. I mean, he was about to leave the band, and I think he was just like, depressed, felt suffocated. Actually, I was honestly a bit surprised when I found out he’d got me knocked up.”

Harry looks down at his tea, stirring it. He doesn’t say anything. Zayn has seemed depressed since France, but he hasn’t wanted to acknowledge it. He didn’t even tell Harry what he discussed with Sean.

He feels a childish, paranoid lurch of resentment toward Louis for the years of knowledge he has that Harry doesn’t, for the certain fire-forged bond he has with Zayn. It’s the same feeling he got every time he watched them break off from the group and sneak away to bus one, laughing together — his ex-boyfriend and his ex-best friend.

Louis offers him the sleeve of biscuits. He takes two.

“Has he mentioned anything about feeling depressed, lately?” Harry says.

“Nah. Not to me, no.”

“I just get so afraid he’s gonna relapse, or, like…”

Louis gives him a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Cheat?”

He nods, embarrassed. “It’s been going on for at least a month, the dick thing,” he says. “Maybe two now.”

“Shit,” Louis says. “Look, that’s not — I’m sure he’s not stepping out. Just talk to him.”

“I try, but he gets so defensive…”

“Try again. And you’d know if he relapsed.”

“Would I?” he says, black dread billowing up in his gut. “I’ve never been with him when he was drinking. I don’t know what he’s like.”

“Trust me,” Louis says grimly, “you’d know. He’s not exactly good at hiding it.”

Harry feels a pang for Louis, then. “But he _has_ been acting off, lately, he has _._..”

“He’s not just gonna throw his sobriety away after all these years, and he’s not just gonna throw _you_ away after all these years.”

“I kept him in France. I knew he hated it, I knew he couldn’t get to AA, but he kept insisting he was fine, and it was such a, like — it was such an emotionally draining role for me, and I needed to know I was coming home to him and the girls to be able to get through the day —"

“Have you said any of that to him?”

“No,” he admits.

“Well, there's half your problem! The fuck’s going on here, why’s no one talking to each other?”

“I don’t know, honestly. It just sort of started, and then spiraled…” Words are pouring out of him like vomit; he didn’t realize how heavy this was all weighing on his mind until he started talking. “I mean, you know how Zayn is, he gets so prickly.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Sometimes I… I worry that even after all these years, that, uh… That I still don’t know him, somehow.”

Louis chuckles. “You know him,” he says gently. “After everything you two've been through? You know him. Come on."

"He's good at making me feel like I don't."

"Yeah, well, that's just what he fuckin' does, you know that. You've just got to be smarter than that, you've got to remind him he doesn't need to play these games with you."

Harry lets out a choked little laugh. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I know this can't be fun for you, talking to me about him like this. I just don’t really have anyone else to go to.”

“Harry, _talk_ to him. Seriously.”

“Yeah. I will.”

“He might just need to get on some different medication, y’know?”

“Maybe.”

“I tried to ask him what’s going on with work, the other day,” Louis says. “But he shut me down.”

Harry lets out a sigh. “Yeah, I dunno what’s going on with that. I think he might be burned out on music, or something, but he’s not looking into anything else… he either fired his manager, or his manager fired him, I dunno what went down. He was vague.”

“Seriously? I had no idea.”

“Yeah, this was fairly recent.”

“I wish he could get Syena back,” Louis says. “She was good for him.”

“I agree. I think she just felt like she’d been with him too long. I mean, fifteen years…”

“Nah, I totally get it.”

Harry lifts an eyebrow. “You wanna take a crack at the job?”

Louis laughs. “Managing Zayn? Nah, I tried when we were married. Didn’t work out so great. Too many other people in his ear.”

“Right.”

“I’m sort of wondering now if he’s even gonna have any interest in coming back to the band.”

“God,” Harry says, “I’d totally forgot about that. I dunno... Like you and I both said, it’s a toss-up.”

They’re quiet for a few moments, long enough for it to get awkward. They aren’t used to being alone together like this.

“So… how are the girls doing?” Louis says.

“Oh, fantastic,” Harry says, smiling. “Getting settled back in school just fine, and everything. No problems there.”

Louis smiles back at him. “Good, good. We should get them together with the boys again, that was fun.”

“Hmm, was it?”

“What, what’s that face?”

“Nothing! They just play a bit rough for Marlena, I think…”

“Aw, it wasn’t that bad.”

“She cried,” Harry points out.

“But she cries all the time, mate.”

“She doesn’t!”

“She does,” Louis laughs. “I’m not slagging off your kid, I love her, but she is a crier.”

“I mean, she cries when someone puts her in a _headlock_ , yeah…”

“She should’ve swung on him. He’s used to Max.”

“She’s not really the type to take a swing at anybody,” he says defensively.

“Anyway,” Louis says, seeming amused, “if you wanna take ‘em to a museum or something sometime, somewhere where there’s not gonna be horseplay.”

“Museum would be nice,” Harry agrees.

 

*

 

Louis waits until after dinner to bring the Ceci thing up to Liam. He finds him in the kitchen, blending up some frozen bananas in the food processor.

“Hey,” he says.

Liam stops the blender. “Tommo,” he says cheerfully. “Want some?”

Louis makes a face. “You know, we have real ice cream.”

“Honestly, I think this tastes better.”

“I think you’ve got some sort of Stockholm syndrome, but anyway. So… Harry came by, earlier.”

“Stock-holm syn-drome,” Liam sings. “Came over for what?”

Louis sits at one of the barstools against the island, scooting it over slightly so the tendrils from one of their hanging plants don’t brush against his face. “To talk to me.”

“To talk to _you_ , ooh,” Liam says, smiling. He had a beer with dinner, and he’s clearly in a light-hearted mood.

Louis reconsiders even telling him right now, but it’s probably best to get it out of the way. “Me, yeah.”

“So... what’s wrong?”

“Why d’you think something's wrong?”

“You’ve been weird with me for hours, haven’t been taking the piss even when I gave you massive openings.”

Louis laughs. “Uhh… it’s about your ex-wife.”

Liam’s brow knits. “Hmm,” he says. “Unexpected. Go on.”

“He’s just got a part in a film,” Louis says. “Playing opposite her. It’s a serious romance, lots of sex, lots of that sort of thing.”

Liam’s face changes. He looks back down at the blender. “And he’s for sure going to do it?”

Louis shrugs. “I think they’re in final talks, aye.”

Liam nods. He gets an expression like he’s thinking deeply, then annoyance crosses his face, and he sighs.

“He said he wouldn’t do it, except that it’s a great opportunity,” Louis says. “Like, Oscar bait.”

Liam nods some more.

“Liam?”

“It’s fine,” Liam says. “We split up nearly fifteen years ago, what right do I have to be weirded out?”

“But you are weirded out, then?”

“I mean, yeah! He’s like family to me, and that’s, y’know, the mother of my child — plus the press on it is gonna be a nightmare, they’re going to drag up all those old jokes about how incestuous the band is, and that’s shit media to have when we’re trying to plan a reunion —“ Liam slaps his hands down on the island. “Know what? It’s fine. No, he should do it.”

“I’d find it weird if he, I dunno, had to snog El for a movie,” Louis says. “And I haven’t even got a kid with her.”

“And things between me and Ceci have been normal lately, even! We’ve even been, like, conversating, about things besides Sunday!” Liam carries on, clearly not having even heard what Louis just said. “Should this be bothering me?”

“What bothers you is what bothers you, there’s no should.”

“Why did he bring this up with you and not me?”

Louis hesitates and drums his fingers on the table. “I think he worried you might just pretend it was fine. Being meself, I, ah, voiced some reservations.”

It’s the same as it was in the band, and he expects it always will be. He has to be the heavy, the squeaky wheel, say what everyone else is thinking but is too scared to cop to. It’s been so long, Louis doesn’t mind it anymore — but he is a little amused that as they’ve gotten older and more intertwined, this responsibility has crept from band business over into their personal lives.

“Thanks for that,” Liam says.

“‘Course.”

Liam rubs at his stubbly cheeks. “Now I’m just thinking about Sunday,” he says.

“Why don’t you ask her how she feels? ‘Cos Harry said he wouldn’t take it if either of you two would be too weirded out by it.”

“She wouldn’t say so if she was,” Liam murmurs. “She’s, y’know. Considerate.”

“Like her dad.”

Liam smiles. “More than me. Honestly, I’m more annoyed with Ceci than with Harry.”

“Why?”

“For not giving me a heads-up. She’s got all the same information he does, yeah? How hard is it to pick up the phone?”

“Right,” Louis says. “Shit, that didn’t even occur to me.”

Liam stares off into space for a minute, then grimaces. “I’m just imagining them kissing."

“Hey, think of it this way — at least he’s not marrying her and having babies with her and doing photoshoots in _Vogue_ with his tongue down her throat. You’re living a shade of my Harold nightmare, Payno, so count your blessings.”

Liam comes around the island, laughing. He cups Louis’ face in his hands and kisses him on the nose. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he murmurs.

They hear footsteps behind them, and then a little body collides with them and joins their embrace.

Louis looks down. “Hi Fox.”

“Hi,” Max chirps.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. I just wanted a hug too.”

Chuckling, Liam lets go of Louis so Max can wrap his arms around Louis’ waist and bury his face in his chest.

“Sweet lad,” Louis says with a smile, hugging him back tight. Of all the kids, Max is the only one who’s still got that happy-go-lucky innocence that melts his heart. “You’re a bit stinky.”

“I know,” Max says, his voice muffled. “I just took my shoes off, I had them on since this morning.”

“Ohh, that’s fairly hazardous,” he teases.

Max laughs. Louis tousles his hair, and Liam wraps them both back up in his arms.

 

*

 

Sunday is understandably grossed out.

“God,” she says, rolling her chair away from her desk. “You know what you guys make me feel like sometimes? Hamlet.”

Liam tilts his head. “You want to murder me, lovey?”

She laughs. “Hamlet doesn’t murder his dad, his uncle murders his dad and marries his mom… you never read Hamlet?”

“Nah, never got around to it. You reading that for school?”

“Yeah, my literature class. But part of the reason Hamlet is so mad is ‘cos he thinks what his uncle did is incest, but nobody is as weirded out as he is.”

“Ohh. I’m tracking, now, I got it.”

“You never even _saw_ Hamlet? I thought Mom did Hamlet, back when she was on Broadway.”

“She did,” Liam says. “But we were separated by then. Your uncle Dick took you to see her in it.”

“I sort of remember that,” she says.

“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “So, are you okay with this, though?”

“Dad, it’s whatever,” Sunday says, laughing. “I grew up watching Mom do love scenes with random people and watching you grab your crotch on national television, I can handle her doing a movie with Harry.”

“You make us sound like a pair of prostitutes...”

“Isn’t that kind of the business, though?”

Liam gapes at her in offense.

From the doorway, they hear Amir’s voice: “Hunter S. Thompson said show business is a plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.”

They both turn to him, surprised.

“Hey,” Amir says casually, leaning on her open door. “I was on my way to the toilet and I heard you talking. What’s up?”

“Your other stepdad’s gonna do a raunchy sex movie where he effs my mom, apparently,” Sunday tells him.

“Sunday!” Liam exclaims. “Don’t say ‘effs’! ‘Specially not about your mum!”

“Sorry.”

“Ha,” Amir says, “Harry really just gets away with _everything,_ doesn’t he? I want to be him when I grow up.”

“Will you get outta here, you troublemaker?” Liam says, fondly and without invective. Amir moves on down the hallway, chuckling to himself.

 

*

 

Harry takes a long bath in the evening. He doesn’t check his phone at all, just listens to music, so he’s a little disoriented when he gets out and it’s already 7:30.

He walks down the dark hall, his skin still flushed under his clothes. He can hear Zayn reading the girls a story.

Harry pokes his head in the door. They’re all piled onto Marlena’s bed, and Zayn’s reading them _The Little Prince_ by the light of the bedside lamp.

“Aww,” he says, feeling a pang in the whereabouts of his uterus.

Zayn glances up at him and smiles. “There he is...”

The girls look up too.

“Hi Daddy,” Marlena chirps.

“Hi sweetheart.” Harry comes over to perch at the foot of the bed. He makes a funny face at Toni, who giggles; he pulls her into his arms and pokes his fingers into her cheeks. “Are those dimples?”

She laughs harder. “I dunno, are they?”

“Yeah, they are… you get those from me,” he fondly jokes.

Zayn watches them with a strange look on his face. He taps the cover of the book with his pointer finger. “Y’know, Harry was a prince, once,” he says. His voice sounds rough.

Harry glances up. Toni is fiddling with the pendant around his neck, not paying attention, but Marlena is looking at him from the crook of Zayn’s arm, searching his face.

“Really?” she says.

“Yeah,” Zayn says, stroking Marlena’s hair. He smiles humorlessly, his teeth flashing in the low light. “He married a prince, and he was a prince too for a little while…”

“Yes,” Harry says stiffly.

“Did you go to balls?” Marlena says. “And dance? And live in a palace?”

“I went to some balls,” Harry says. “Never lived in a palace.”

“Did you have a crown?” Toni says.

“No, love. I did buy myself a tiara, embarrassingly. I only wore it once.”

He had worn the tiara and nothing else for Angelos on his birthday, the diamonds glittering in his dark curls. Harry waited naked for him in their bed in the palatial oceanside Denmark manse that was part of Angelos’s family holdings. It was snowing that night, fat flakes hitting the dark water and vanishing instantly. When Angelos found him, he smiled and smiled, called him darling and told him he looked lovely. Called Harry his princess as he slid into him.

Harry gave the tiara away to a charity auction a few months later. Forty grand for UNICEF.

“Did everyone call you prince?” Marlena says, looking utterly dazzled by the idea, stars in her eyes.

“Some people,” Harry says. “Some people, on certain occasions, called me Prince Harry.”

Toni’s mouth makes an O. “Wow.”

Zayn is still smiling. “But he gave it all up. For me. For some reason.”

“Zayn,” Harry replies in a warning tone.

“Wait, so you had to _stop_ being a prince?” Toni says. “Did you, like, get fired?”

Harry laughs. “Nah,” he says. “More like I quit.”

Zayn is still looking at him with an inscrutable expression, his catlike eyes half-lidded.

 

*

 

Harry grabs him by the front of his shirt as soon as they’ve shut the girls’ door and are safely out of earshot in the hallway. “Have you been drinking?” he says, his heart thumping with fear.

Zayn scoffs and pushes his hand away. “Fuck off o’ me… no, I ‘aven’t been fucking drinking, what’s wrong with you? I smoked some weed earlier, and when I got home I took a Xan. That allowed anymore?”

Harry relaxes. “Sorry. You were just being weird in there.”

“Weird how?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Bringing up my first marriage… you’re perfectly aware I don’t want to talk to them about that ‘til they’re old enough to understand.”

They stare each other down in the darkness.

“It’s you who’s being weird,” Zayn accuses. “Keep lookin’ at me like I’m a fucking criminal, lately.”

“‘Scuse me, you keep pushing me away ever since we got back, and why would you be doing that if there wasn’t something going on?”

“I’m a bit de _-pressed_ ,” Zayn says through his teeth.

“But why are you acting like you’re angry with me? What did I do?”

“Nothing! I’m sorry if I’ve been dicky, but absolutely nothing. ”

Harry exhales. He knows this isn’t true, but what’s he going to do? Call Zayn a liar?

"If I were Louis, you'd tell me," he says, the words bursting unexpectedly out of him. 

Zayn blinks at him. "Sorry?"

"I said what I said. You don't talk to me the way you talk to him. After all these years, you still don't. You're always, like... you think I'm going to judge you, or not understand, or something, just 'cos I don't smoke blunts with you in a fucking broken down van. I'm your _husband."_

"I know who you are, mate!"

"Then tell me the truth!"

"Harry, Harry... I lied to Louis plenty when we were married, okay? I'm more truthful with you than I am with anyone... you're being irrational. I've barely spoken to him since we got back, we've only talked about our kids. You're upset about nothing. I said I'm sorry."

Harry runs his tongue over his teeth. "Alright," he says.

“Let’s go to bed,” Zayn coaxes, settling his hands on Harry’s hips and walking him backwards. “Let’s cuddle and watch some telly. Alright?”

“Yeah.”

 

CALABASAS, OCTOBER 28, 2034

Sunday hears her mom honking from where she’s parked the Benz on the gravel road directly outside of the barn aisle, but she chooses to ignore it as she methodically combs her horse’s mane out.

“That’s a crazy lady,” she whispers to Duchess. “That’s a crazy lady out there.”

Duchess nickers.

After five minutes of intermittent honks, she finishes up, shuts the stall door and stomps over to the car, leaning in the passenger window. “I heard you. I wasn’t done.”

“Well, that’s a little ridiculous,” Ceci says, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “So you’re just wasting my time on purpose?”

“I told you I’d be three hours! Why did you come this early?”

“Because I want to drop you back off at your father’s and get home for dinner at a reasonable time!”

Sunday gets in the car, fuming, and very intentionally presses her muddy knees to the pristine underside of the glove box. “It’s always nice to be reminded I’m just an inconvenience for you.”

The car begins rolling over the gravel, down the hill to the road.

“Honestly, Sunday,” Ceci says in exasperation. “It’s not you, it’s this horses thing. How long are you going to keep at this? It’s sort of a hobby for little girls, isn’t it? I stopped when I was twelve."

“Mom, I am an _athlete_. This is my passion. It’s like acting is for you.”

“I make a lot of money at acting! What money can you make doing this? You told me yourself that even the Olympians don’t make any money!”

“Why do I have to make money?” she shouts, leaning her wrist out the window so she can swipe them past the stables’ electric gate. “You and Dad are millionaires! Why can’t I just do what I want?”

“I just feel like it consumes your life,” Ceci says, lowering her massive sunglasses back over her eyes as she turns onto the road.

The sun is setting as they drive west. Sunday wants to ask her if she has a spare pair, but she doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction, so she just squints through the blinding glare.

“Like, you’re such a beautiful young woman,” Ceci continues. “And you’re always hiding yourself under a helmet, on the back of a horse. You don’t date. I don’t get it.”

“Mom! I have a _dream_ , okay? And I work really hard at it!”

“I wish you’d just understand that there are milestones you should be meeting that you really just aren’t,” Ceci says churlishly.

“Oh,” Sunday says, “right, I’ll be like you and Dad, then, and decide to have a baby at twenty-two after dating for like six months!”

“What does _that_ have to do with anything?”

Sunday stares at her in disbelief.

“You are _so_ like your father,” Ceci says. “Just incredibly stubborn, so childish, so convinced you’re right about everything. You’ll find out, later on, how much I was right about.”

“Dad’s more mature than _you_.”

“Oh, please!”

“He is, and he says the same stuff to me about horses! It’s just the difference is, he’s actually _around_ , so it’s not the _only_ thing he talks to me about!”

Ceci snorts. “This isn’t the only thing I talk to you about. You’re being dramatic.”

“I barely saw you yesterday, and I haven’t seen you in at least two months!”

“Well, _today_ I actually had some free time, but you insisted you had to come out here for five hours —“

“Three, and I told you I had to do that! I have a horse trials coming up! Why did you ask me for a visit if you weren’t going to be able to actually spend time with me yesterday?”

Ceci had left Sunday in her sprawling Malibu mansion and run off to a series of meetings; Sunday spent the day wandering aimlessly, doing a little bit of homework and having stilted conversation with John, her laconic stepdad.

“I didn’t know in advance that I’d be tied up,” Ceci says. “I told you I was sorry.”

“But I just want, like…”

“What? What do you want?”

Sunday leans against the door, resting her head against the window.

 _“_ Nothing,” she says.

 

*

 

They’ve sort of made up by the time Ceci drops her off. She leans out the window, giant Prada sunglasses still on, and says, “I’ll text you,” then blows Sunday a kiss.

Sunday nods. As soon as the Benz has pulled around the circular driveway and disappeared from sight, she starts to cry.

Embarrassed, she swipes furiously at her cheeks as she heads into the house. It’s quiet for once. She wanders around until she hears noise in the den, and then pokes her head in.

Louis is alone in there, watching sports and looking at his tablet. He glances up when he hears her. “Hey there,” he says, then appears to notice her tear-stained face and adds, “Everythin’ alright?”

“Yeah,” Sunday says, sniffing. “Is my dad home?”

“No, sorry… he took the boys to the movies. What’s up?”

“Nothing,” she says, wiping her eyes some more. “Just my mom.”

Louis gets up and stretches, wincing like he does when his back is bothering him. “Got it. You want to go get ice cream?”

“Yes please,” she says, with relief.

 

*

 

Sunday struggles to get her thoughts together in the car. Louis waits patiently. He’s driving manually, like he wants to be old-fashioned today.

“Jeni’s alright with you?” he says.

She nods. “Yeah.”

They’re quiet for a little longer.

“Hey, are you guys ever gonna get a new dog?” she says.

Louis shrugs. He’d been the most upset of all of them when Bo died. Sunday remembers when he and Liam came home from the vet — Liam had an arm wrapped tight around his shoulders, and he was tearful and silent, hanging onto Bo’s collar.

“Probably,” he says. “If the twins start pesterin’ us about it. Why d’you ask?”

“Just some days, it’d be nice to come home to a dog.”

“Yeah… I know what you mean.”

Sunday sniffles. “It’s like she doesn’t even know who I _am_ ,” she says.

Louis doesn’t seem fazed by this abrupt segue. “Probably to some extent she doesn’t, love.”

“But why? Why doesn’t she want to know me? It’s like once I stopped being a cute little kid, she started thinking I should become a different person.”

“Some people don’t know how to love properly,” Louis says. 

“I just don’t understand what she wants from me. She never says anything nice to me, she's always just giving me a hard time that I don’t like, wear makeup and go out and stuff like that. I feel like she should be happy I’m not drinking or doing drugs or —” With a lurch, she remembers Amir, and stops herself mid-sentence.

But Louis doesn’t acknowledge the accidental slight. “She’s in an industry where all of the stock is in physical appearance,” he says. “So understand that she has skewed priorities. Your priorities are fine, Sunday. You’re doing somethin’ you love, and it’s really difficult, and I’m proud of how much time and work you put into it. Me and your dad both just want you to finish your education so you’ve got more options down the road, that’s all.”

“Thanks,” she murmurs.

“‘Course.”

“It’s just, like. I barely see her to begin with.”

“I know.”

 

*

 

As they walk back into the parking lot of Jeni’s, licking their ice cream, they immediately get papped by a lone paparazzi lounging on the hood of his Range Rover.

Louis laughs. “Slow news day, Tim?”

“Ah, you know how it is,” Tim says. “What flavors you guys get?”

“Flavor of the day,” Louis says, jingling his keys.

Sunday gives Tim a sarcastic little wave as they pass by him, wishing she had changed out of her barn clothes.

Louis puts the car in self-drive this time, probably because there’s ice cream melting and trickling down his hand. “Ahh,” he mutters, “fuckin’ California, it’s almost November…”

Sunday laughs. “You want a napkin?”

“What, you got one?”

She hands him several. “I always take some.”

“Yeah, you and Liam,” he says fondly, mopping his wrist. “Napkin brigade.”

They curl around the 101. Sunday loves how the hills look at night; individual houses glowing like little jewels scattered through the lush forest.

“I feel like when I turn eighteen, I’ll barely see her anymore,” she says. “‘Cos she won’t feel obligated, and I’m not going to go out of my way to make it happen.”

“That’s entirely up to you,” Louis says. “If you want her in your life or not, that’s your decision to make.”

“Like, I do love her.” Sunday’s voice hoarsens. “She’s my mom. And I know she loves me, in her own way… but."

More tears leak down her cheeks. She swipes at them. 

"I can't remember the last time she hugged me," she says. "Am I overreacting, or is that kind of fucked up?"

Louis sticks his ice cream in a cup holder and reaches over, wrapping an arm around her and bringing her in.

“You know I’ll always be here,” he murmurs. “Alright?”

“I know."

“Good.”

She hesitates, then draws back from him and says, “For a while now, I’ve, um. I’ve thought of you like a dad… if that’s okay.”

Louis’ eyes soften, and his grip tightens on her shoulder. “‘Course that’s okay, love,” he says gently. “You know I feel the same way on my end.”

“Okay,” Sunday says, and lets out a tearful, hiccupy laugh. “Good.”

He reaches up and gives her hair a tousle. “Finish your ice cream, you’ll feel better.”

 

CALABASAS, OCTOBER 30, 2034

 _Boop-boop boop boop boop_. _Boop-boop boop boop boop._

Amir groans and slaps at his watch where it’s lying on the bedside table. “Fuck off…”

 _Boop-boop boop boop boop_. _Boop-boop boop boop boop._

“Accept FaceTime,” he mutters, sitting up.

The holographic display pops up and hovers; it’s Evan, who’s in his car. “Yo,” he says. “Wait, were you fucking asleep?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s two-thirty, man. Like, I just got out of class.”

Amir, ignoring him, swipes down his notifications bar. He has missed texts from a bunch of people, including a lame-ass _if you got hurt, im sorry_ from Sebastian that he’s ignoring, and several from Mia.

She’s been pestering him ever since that dinner, checking in, trying to get him to make plans with her. Usually when he wants to be left alone by everyone, she’s the only exception — but right now, she’s firmly included.

“Why am I on pause?” Evan says.

Amir flicks back to him. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah,” Evan says. “I just wanted to see if you were coming to Kai’s party tonight.”

“You know I’m grounded.”

“Please, like you've never snuck out before. Come on, it’s our last Halloween all together… everyone’s gonna go off to college next year, we’re probably never gonna have another Halloween with Thorngate people.”

Amir is silent.

“C’mon,” Evan wheedles. “I feel like you’ve been hiding out since Sasha’s party… what’s the problem? Is it Seb? ‘Cos he won’t be there.”

“It’s not him,” he snaps.

“You can just come, have a few beers, we’ll head out around twelve thirty, you can sneak back in the house and it’ll be like you never left. Not a big deal.”

Amir sighs and rubs at his eyes. “Alright,” he says. “When d’you want to pick me up?”

“Nice. Is ten good?”

“Yeah, ten’s fine.”

“Alright, we’ll be in the driveway.”

“Remind Jason he’s got to turn his headlights off,” Amir cautions. “My dad’s bedroom’s got a window to the front of the house.”

“Got it.”

 

*

 

Sunday follows the sound of soft piano music to the rumpus room, where she finds Amir playing with the patio door open the way he likes to do.

She settles down in an easy chair across from him. He glances up at her and, remaining expressionless, launches into a tinkly rendition of _Yakety Sax_ that makes her laugh.

“What’s up?” Amir says, taking a drag off a joint he has between his fingers.

Sunday holds her hand up. Looking surprised, he gets up and hands it to her. She places it jauntily between her lips and inhales.

“This is the proudest moment of my life,” Amir says, returning to the piano.

“You know, I’ve smoked weed before.”

“Yeah, but never with _me_.”

She coughs a little. “Are you ever gonna shave again?”

He starts playing _Careless Whisper._ “Never gonna shave again,” he sings.

Sunday laughs some more.

Amir turns from the piano finally, stroking his cheeks. “Nah, I’m gonna try a beard.”

“Can I just say, you look a lot better clean-shaven?”

He pouts at her and comes to take the joint back. “Give it time,” he says, “it’s turning into something.”

“It’s not,” Sunday giggles. “It’s so patchy.”

“Yeah, ‘cos it hasn’t had the chance to realize its potential!” He blows out smoke at her like a dragon.

“Louis is worried about you, y’know. With the sleeping all day and not shaving.”

“It’s his fault,” Amir says, and perches next to her on the arm of the easy chair. “He grounded me, I’m not in school, I’ve got nothing to do.”

“You’re the one who got yourself grounded,” Sunday points out, plucking the joint from his fingers. “And there’s plenty of things you could be doing.”

She coughs again after her second hit.

“You alright?” Amir jibes her. “You gonna die? You need water?”

“This is why I don’t smoke with you!”

“You don’t smoke with me ‘cos you’re a narc.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m a _narc_. I didn’t say anything when I found dumbass Jason in my bathroom sophomore year, doing ketamine off my toilet seat."

“Jason’s an adventurous young man,” Amir deadpans.

Sunday takes another drag. This kind of banter is standard for them, but their relationship has definitely deteriorated some since Mia left home. She was the glue that held the five kids together; they both miss her and resent the other for not being her. 

“How was your weekend?" she says as an olive branch. 

Amir takes the joint back from her. “Fine.”

“How are your sisters?”

“Good,” he says. "Saturday, we all went to the beach, fucked around, and I helped them find seashells.” He ashes the joint. “Was kind of cute, they wanted to keep every single one… I had to teach them what’s good.”

“That is cute.”

He nods.

“So are you cool with your dad again?” Sunday says.

His face changes. “Why, what's Mia been telling you?”

“What? Nothing, I just know you’ve been avoiding going over there.”

“Oh.” Amir seems to relax.

“She and I don’t like, gossip about you,” Sunday says. “We have enough other stuff going on in our own lives, trust me.”

He flicks her in the ear, and she jerks away and slaps his arm. “Me and my dad are cool, it’s whatever.”

Sunday can tell he’s lying, but she doesn’t push him.

“How are you and your mom?” Amir shoots back.

Her face and chest flush with heat. “Screw you.”

“You started it.”

“It’s not the same and you know it."

“How isn’t it?”

“‘Cos your dad actually gives a shit about you?”

“Hey, at least your mom didn’t go off and start a new family.”

“I almost wish she had,” Sunday says. “At least she'd have an excuse for not being around.”

Amir studies her. “Sorry,” he says. “I was just being a dick, I thought you were tweaking me.”

He offers her the joint, but she shakes her head.

"You've been kind of mean, lately," she says. 

"Mean how?"

"Mean like prickly."

Amir heaves a sigh. "Sorry."

"Sorry like you promise you'll take a chill pill?"

"Sorry like I know what you're talking about, and I'd take a pill if I had one."

She laughs at this, and so does he, which successfully breaks the tension.

Sunday hands him the joint back. “Hey, you remember when we’d sit on the bench and sing together while you were playing?”

“Like ten years ago?”

“Come on, it was more like five."

“Yeah, no, I remember. You have a good voice. Kind of wasted on someone with no interest in music.”

“It’s not my fault, I think that part of my brain doesn’t work right.”

“Yeah, math and music are basically the same thing,” Amir says, “and you’re, like, not good at math.”

She scowls at him.

He puts his hands up. “I _did_ offer to tutor you.”

“I wouldn’t let you tutor me if my life depended on it.”

Amir pops off the armrest, grinning, and returns to the piano. “Any requests?”

“Play Billy Joel.”

“I’d sooner kill myself.”

“Wo-ow,” she says. “You pretentious snob.”

Amir half-stands, glaring at her over the piano, then sits and plays the opening riff from _Piano Man_. Sunday golf claps.

“That’s all you’re getting,” he says.

“Aww…”

Amir starts playing some experimental jazz number that doesn’t appeal to her ears at all. She gets out of the chair and wanders deeper into the room, her head buzzing from the weed. Past the pool table and arcade games, there’s a wall that’s bare save for some framed photos. Sunday stops in front of it. It’s been a while since she’s looked at these.

Her favorite photo of them as a family is in the center. It’s all of them on the beach after Louis and Liam got married in Hawaii. The sun is going down, bleeding shocking reds and purples into the sky behind them. They’re sitting in the sand, because that’s the only way they could get all of them in the photo. The twins are only a year old, just towheaded babes in their dads’ arms. Mia, Sunday and Amir sit in front, wearing their flower girl dresses and little ring bearer suit, respectively. Everyone’s beaming, frozen in the moment of that glorious sunset.

 

*

 

Louis and Liam turn in early and stay up watching telly. They’re giving Hec’s band a listen at Capital the next day, and then they’ve got to take the twins and their friends trick-or-treating, so Louis had planned to be asleep by ten. But he keeps glancing over at Liam, who looks very cute in his reading glasses.

“Hullo,” Louis eventually says to him, putting his tablet down and abandoning Twitter.

Liam glances up. “Hi,” he says, smiling.

“Wanna have sex?”

“Oh, always,” Liam says cheerfully. He takes his glasses off and reaches across Louis to set them on the bedside table.

“Yeah? Not tired or anythin’?”

“Fuck no. C’mere.” He pounces on a giggling Louis and rolls him onto his back on the bed, pressing kisses to his cheeks and nose.

“Been a minute,” Louis murmurs.

“Mmm,” Liam says, smoothing his hands up Louis’ sides, riding his raglan pajama shirt up. “Two weeks?”

“Three, lad.”

“Hoo, shit, that is a minute. Hey, know what we should do?”

“Aye?”

“Fuck in the shower.”

Louis laughs. “Sorry, I can’t _possibly_ be arsed to have sex standin’ up tonight.”

“I thought you said you liked when we had shower sex!”

“That must’ve been your other husband, love.”

“Alright,” Liam says, chuckling as he kisses Louis’ chest tat, “so it’s one of those nights where you just wanna lie there, huh?”

“Just lying there sounds lovely, thanks for offering.”

Liam laughs harder, then starts kissing Louis’ stomach, pressing his lips to the handful of faded white stretch marks under his navel.

“If you’re gonna kiss somethin’, make it my dick," Louis says. 

Liam shimmies back up to meet his mouth, biting his lip and grabbing a strong handful of his thigh. “Don’t you boss me around, now,” he says, smiling. “Mr I’m Just Gonna Lay There.”

“Well,” Louis rasps, “why don’t you go on and do whatever you like to me, then?”

“Alright…”

Without Louis ordering him around, Liam seems to go into a sort of sexual autopilot. He gropes and squeezes at Louis’ bum and thighs for a while, rubbing his half-hard cock on his leg, then leans across him again to grab the lube off the table.

Louis closes his eyes as he’s being fingered. He tries to stay in the moment, but it’s always difficult. Liam kisses Louis messily while he slides into him. Louis moans against his lips, then purrs, “Good boy...”

Liam starts playing with his cock, wrapping his other arm securely around him so he can hold Louis close as he rolls his hips. Louis exhales hard at the waves of pleasure that have begun to break over him, and the tight clutch of Liam’s warm, calloused palm around him. “Liam…”

“Yeah love,” Liam murmurs, kissing him under his ear.

“That’s nice, that’s good stuff… right there…” He reaches down to readjust Liam’s hand on his cock, and Liam chuckles.

“What happened to not bossing me?” he says in a bassy voice, nipping at Louis’ neck.

Louis laughs and withdraws his hand. “Sorry… habit…”

They kiss hungrily for a while. Louis has missed kissing him like this, dirty kissing. It’s hard to get a moment away from the kids, who act horrified if they go for anything more than a light peck. He loves the rough scrape of their facial hair and the way his lips burn after Liam bites and sucks them; he loves Liam’s tongue pushing into his mouth.

Louis starts playing it up for Liam, whining and moaning that way he knows he likes, and Liam reacts almost immediately. He lets out a frustrated growl that makes Louis laugh, then starts putting in work like he’s getting paid to, pounding him mercilessly into the bed.

“You feel so good,” Louis sighs. He didn't realize how much he'd been craving Liam. This is exactly what his stressy brain needs.

“How good?”

Louis nuzzles the side of his jaw, then whispers lasciviously in his ear, “I’m gonna be sore tomorrow.”

“Ohh,” Liam groans, and fucks him harder. “Why d’you use that like a fucking weapon?”

“‘Cos I’m a bad boy, Daddy,” he says in an extra thick accent, “nobody ever taught me any manners…”

“Fuck off,” Liam says, breathing heavily, but the frantic motion of his hips betrays him.

They go like that for only a few more minutes before Liam comes, which Louis is pleased by; that Liam is still attracted enough to him after thirteen years that he can’t hold out.

“Liam,” he sighs from underneath him.

Liam grunts softly and resumes stroking Louis, who hasn’t come yet. “What’s up, angel?” he says, in a rough, low voice that makes Louis tingle.

“Nothin’... just sayin’ your name…” Louis reaches up and pets his hair, watching with pleasure as Liam bites his lip with the effort he’s putting into jerking him off.

When he does come, he arches up into Liam with a soft groan. Liam gives him another round of sloppy kisses.

Liam wipes his hands off with the tissues they keep by the bed, and they cuddle up together, spooning. Liam wraps his arms around Louis and presses a hand flat to his chest, over his heartbeat.

Louis wriggles so he’s pressed more flush against him.

 “You sleepy now?” he teases.

“Gimme a break,” Liam murmurs, “I’m old…”

“Love you, old man.”

“Love you too, older man.”

“Dickhead…” Louis flicks him in the back of his hand. Liam laughs, and Louis shimmies out of his grasp and turns around, sitting up so he can smooth Liam’s hair back.

He does this until it’s hypnotic, petting him like he’s a dog; Liam just lies there in contentment, gazing up at Louis with dark eyes, his hands laced around Louis’ waist.

“That feels good,” Liam murmurs.

Louis smiles at him. “Hey… you’re happy, right?”

His eyebrows go up a bit. “With what?”

“Oh, just wiv everythin’ — work, life, you and me. Feel like we’ve been so busy lately, we haven’t checked in sometimes…”

“Nahh, everything’s great, no complaints.”

“Ceci shit bothering you at all?”

“Not really.” Liam gives him a lazy smile. “I just worry about Sunday.”

“I know. Me too.”

“But me and her had a talk, after you told me what she said the other day… made sure she knows it’s got nothing to do with her, all that.”

“Good, good.”

Liam pinches him on the hip. “You’re cute when you worry about me.”

Louis laughs. “Right back at you.”

Liam pulls him back down onto the bed, taking his face in his hands and snogging him. His hand brushes Louis’ stomach as he’s going for his waist, and Louis instinctively withdraws.

“What?” Liam whispers.

“Nothin’.”

“Why’re you jerking away?”

He heaves a sigh. “You don’t think I’ve put on a wee bit of weight?”

“ _What_? Where?”

“Like three, four pounds…”

“ _Three_? Yeah, hang on, lemme get my microscope out.”

“Oh, piss off, you know that’s more on me!”

Liam kisses him some more. “I honestly haven’t noticed anything,” he says. “You look good.”

“You always say that.”

“‘Cos I mean it!”

“Ahh, but I like to keep it tight for you,” he jokes.

Liam laughs against his throat, and Louis strokes Liam’s face. “I’d rather have you with your imaginary three pounds than too thin, you know that.”

“That ain’t fair either! I go up and down, I can’t help it.”

“Well, you’ve been stressed lately, I think we both have.”

“Yeah, you’re right, actually. Been stressed, been eating like crap. Smoking, too...”

“Mmm, I noticed you’ve been smoking,” Liam murmurs. “Put your jacket on to go get the mail today, it reeked.”

“Shit, my bad.”

“Why don’t you lemme take your mind off things,” he says, kissing his neck. “And quit worrying about how you look.”

“Big ask,” Louis says with a raspy chuckle.

“Yeah, well, same here.”

“Please, you’ve got your P90X obsession, and you’ve never had a baby, neither!”

“That’s what what I meant, for having four kids you look fucking corking. And as far’s I’m concerned, as long as you fancy me, what else matters?”

Louis runs his thumb over Liam’s cheek and smiles up at him. “I fancy you rotten. I’ll admit I do wish you wouldn’t have cut your hair this short.”

Liam laughs and starts pressing kisses to his chest through his shirt, then goes to his bicep and kisses all over the stag. “You hate _every_ haircut I get…”

“Just the short ones! I like your hair best when it’s grown in for a while, it’s my cross to bear in life.”

“If you had your way I’d just get a tenth of a centimeter trimmed every single day.”

“Are you offerin’?” Louis says. “Because please do that. Go ahead.”

Liam laughs and blows a raspberry on him.

 

*

 

Amir slips his watch off and leaves it in his bed, along with two pillows stuffed lengthwise under the sheets.

He creeps into the hall and pauses outside Liam and Louis’ room, trying to figure out if they’re still up, but instead of them talking or the sound of the television, he hears moans.

“Oh, _ew_ ,” he mouths to himself, jumping away from the door. At least if they’re occupied with boning, they probably won’t hear him.

Amie eases the door to Louis’ office open, creeping through the dark to his desk and rummaging through the top drawer for an old house key he keeps in there. There it is, gleaming atop a legal pad. He stuffs it into his pocket. Downstairs, he nimbly disables the alarm system for thirty seconds before slipping out the door.

It’s a chilly evening. He pushes the sleeves of his hoodie down and squints as he makes his way over to a gorgeous red sports car that’s sat idling, its engine a barely audible purr.

“The fuck is this?” Amir says, getting in the backseat.

Jason shifts back into drive. Amir watches his hand; he hasn’t seen a real gear shift in ages. “My dad’s Ferrari F60. Borrowed it for the evening.”

Amir squints at the dashboard. “It’s got no, like — where’s the Bluetooth stuff?”

“Nowhere,” Jason says, laughing. “This is an antique.”

“So you’re actually driving?”

“Yeah,” Jason says.

“You drinking?”

He shrugs. “Two, three beers.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Evan says. He sounds like he’s already been drinking, himself.

“What, you think you’re gonna get pussy just for showing up in this?” Amir says.

“I mean, look at it,” Jason says. “ _I’d_ fuck me in this.”

Evan glances at Amir and mimes stroking his face. “What’s going on here?”

He shrugs. “Growing something.”

“You look a little, uh, _rugged,_ ” Jason says. “Don’t know if that’s quite a look that suits you, pretty boy.”

“I don’t care,” Amir says.

“Ooh,” Jason says with a chuckle, and he pulls smoothly out of the driveway and onto the dark road. “He doesn’t _care_.”

Amir, laughing, reaches over the seat and flicks Jason in the ear. He pretends to be grievously wounded by this.

Evan shakes his head at them. “It looks fine,” he says, turning back around and glancing at his texts.

 

*

 

Eight beers later, Amir ends up on the floor of Kai’s dad’s study, watching the fan spin against the sandalwood ceiling. Above him on the couch, Kai and their other friend Damon are talking quietly while they pass a blunt back and forth.

“The problem is, if I don’t get into Harvard, my dad’s gonna shit himself,” Kai says.

“Why d’you _need_ to go, though?” Damon says. “Why not Brown or something?”

“It’s for the networking. He knows I’m not smart enough to be the next Zuckerberg, so I have to meet the next Zuckerberg, get in good with him and go work with him.”

“Zuckerberg starts civil wars,” Amir slurs from the floor. “Don’t work for him…”

Kai and Damon glance over at him from the couch.

“Hey, man, didn’t realize you were awake,” Damon says.

Amir lifts his hand for the blunt.

Kai hands it to him. “Where’re you trying to go for school, Amir?”

Amir shrugs. “Haven’t actually applied anywhere yet.”

“Oh, shit,” Damon says. “Aren’t most of them due next month?”

“Yeah,” he says, thinking with an unpleasant lurch of the half-finished Juilliard application he has saved on his tablet.

“That’s wild,” Kai says. “That makes me feel a little better, honestly. You were always the one who had his shit together.”

“Was I?” Amir says, handing the blunt back.

“Uh, yeah, _El_ _Presidente_ ,” he says mockingly, and Amir laughs.

 

*

 

Amir is completely blasted by the time Jason and Evan come find him.

“Jesus,” Jason groans as they pull him up off Kai’s back lawn and wrap his inert arms around their shoulders. “Meer, you really need to get it together. I thought you could hang.”

Evan snorts. “It’s not like he’s heavy.”

“Yeah, that’s one blessing.”

Amir opens his eyes briefly as they stumble toward the front of the house, passing dozens of empty beer bottles and cans littering the ground. A lot of people didn’t indulge in the Halloween spirit, but of the ones who did, it’s pretty much exclusively girls as sexy animals and guys wearing Batman t-shirts.

Out front, everyone is smoking cigarettes or puking in the bushes.

“Amir,” a girl calls out. He squints at her. Ingrid. They had calc together.

He manages a chin nod.

“I didn’t see you! Were you here the whole night?”

Amir makes a half-affirmative sound. Jason yanks the Ferrari’s back door open, and they heave him into the little jump seat in the back.

“Whoa,” a guy sitting on the front steps says. “Is that yours, Jason?”

“Yeah,” Jason says, all cocky.

“Get in the car, dumbass,” Evan says to Jason, giving him a slap on the back of the neck as he goes by. He gets into the passenger seat and turns to Amir: “You good?”

Amir does his best to nod despite the fact that the entire universe is spinning like a washing machine. “Sleep,” he says.

He drifts off as they head off down the road. He only remembers the night in brief snatches: he did a keg stand, at the behest of Ashton, and then he played beer pong out back. He made out with some guy, he isn’t totally sure who. And then he laid down on the grass because it was cool and soft.

“Are we gonna just drag him upstairs again?” Jason whispers. “Because we fucked that up last time. His dad completely reamed my ass.”

“Yeah, but he was rolling, it was different…”

 

*

 

It’s absolute chaos when he wakes up.

Amir has the sensation of being thrown violently, but is slammed into something that stops his progress — at the same time, the awful sound of crunching metal and splintering glass rings in his ears.

He registers that face is throbbing and lifts his head slightly. There’s blood on his hand; it’s dripping from his nose. A second or so goes by, and he realizes he’s on the floor, wedged between the two rows of seats.

Up front, Evan and Jason are screaming at each other. He can’t even piece together what they’re saying. There’s another, more urgent noise: police sirens.

Amir drags himself out from where he’s hemmed in. Blinking blue and red lights are reflecting through the windshield, which is cracked into a spiderweb pattern. The hood of the car is smashed — through the smoke billowing up from it, he can see that they veered off the tree-lined road and smashed into a thick column standing beside the gate at the edge of a sprawling property.

Amir’s heart pounds harder. There’s a sharp knock at the back window, and all three of them turn.

“OUT OF THE CAR,” a policeman shouts. “HANDS IN THE AIR!”

Amir sits, frozen. Evan is the first to move, shoving his damaged door open and getting out. “Officer —“

“Do’b say anything,” Jason screams at him. He’s bleeding from his mouth; it’s pouring over his chin. “Do’b fuckin’ say anythig —“

“Shut up!” another officer barks. “Do not talk to each other! _Get out of the car! Now!”_

Amir shoves the door open and staggers our. Before he can move or react, the cop who told them to put their hands in the air is flipping him around and slamming him against cold metal.

His drunk brain swims. “What the fuck?” he shouts, struggling.

“Do not move,” the cop warns him, “do _not_ move, motherfucker!”

“I didn’t _do_ anything!”

In a state of panicked confusion, he tries to shove the cop’s arm off him. The cop responds by yanking his arm up the middle of his back, making him gasp in pain. “Touch me again and I _will_ Tase you!”

Amir freezes, truly terrified for what might be the first time in his life. He sees Evan across the hood of the car, standing with his palms flat against the red metal as he’s frisked by a different cop.

Amir exchanges a brief second of panicked eye contact with him. The guy searching him fishes a baggie out of Evan’s jeans and stands up.

“We got an eight ball in the corner pocket,” he says, dangling the baggie from his fingers. Behind Amir, the two other cops laugh.

Evan’s face is white with terror. Amir had no idea he had coke on him tonight.

The cop digs Amir’s wallet out of his pocket. “You got identification in here, or am I gonna have to scan your pretty face and see what pops up?”

“I’ve got ID,” Amir snaps. A few feet back, he can hear Jason arguing incoherently that he doesn’t need a breathalyzer.

“Alright, I see it,” the cop says. “Under eighteen driver’s license for the state of California… Amir William Tomlinson-Malik…” He scoffs.

“What?” Amir says, burning with anger.

“You talk back to me one more time,” the cop says, “see what happens.”

His radio squawks, and the dispatcher says something, but Amir can’t make out what it is.

Evan’s cop lifts up Evan’s license, his flashlight dangling on his wrist. “This one’s over eighteen, under twenty-one,” he calls to the other two.

“So’s mine,” the other cop shouts.

“Alright, you guys got them under control?” says Amir’s cop.

“Think so,” Evan’s cop says.

“I’ve got this one, then.” He starts cuffing Amir. The cold metal digs into his wrists. The radio squawks again, and he says into it, “Ten-fifteen, suspect vehicle has been recovered. Car two twenty-one has custody of suspect one — white male, eighteen — under arrest for fleeing by vehicle from police pursuit, plus underage DUI, plus GTA. Suspect two is a white male, eighteen, under arrest for possession of what we believe to be cocaine in excess of three grams. Both en route to Lost Hills Sheriff Station. Suspect three, white male, seventeen, is en route with car two twenty-two to West Valley barracks for questioning.”

“Ten-four,” a voice crackles over the radio.

He whips Amir around and starts walking him over to a parked squad car. Its lights are still rotating, flashing over the surreal scene in front of him: the totaled candy-red Ferrari and the skid marks that stretch behind it for half a mile up the road, Jason with his face puffy and bloodied as he tries to walk in a straight line for a cop who’s aiming a flashlight at his feet.

“You didn’t say what I’m being arrested for,” Amir says numbly.

“You’re not,” the cop says, putting a hand on his head and guiding him into the backseat. “You’re being detained and taken to the closest CHP barracks for questioning. And depending on my mood, possibly being charged with underage drinking and resisting arrest.”

He slams the door in Amir’s face.

 

*

 

The cop (Officer Shandling, Amir finds out his name is) drags him through an unpleasantly bright lobby, down a hallway to a little white room. He gets a flashlight shined in his eyes by some guy he assumes is a doctor, then Shandling and another cop keep Amir in there for over an hour, badgering him about what he knows about the coke, the stolen car, the police chase.

“Nothing,” he keeps insisting, “nothing!”

“Did you know the car was stolen?” Shandling demands.

“I thought his dad let him borrow it!”

Finally he gets to a point where his head is pounding so hard from the drinking and the accident that he starts to cry. Shandling quickly excuses himself, looking mortified on Amir’s behalf; his partner Nelson (the nicer of the two) brings in a cup of water and pushes it across the metal table to him.

“He fucked up my arm,” Amir mutters, rubbing at an aching spot under the crook of his elbow. “I’m a pianist, and he tried to yank my arm off.”

“You can’t resist arrest,” Nelson says gently. “That’s a serious thing.”

“I didn’t mean to! I didn’t know what was going on!”

Nelson sighs. “Alright. Do you have a good number to reach your parents at?”

Amir thinks wildly, then: who would be less angry at him? Neither Zayn or Louis are a big fan of cops, and they’ll be angry on his behalf that he got manhandled and screamed at. But they’re also both going to be furious at him for sneaking out and then getting in a car with a drunk driver.

“Yeah,” he says, and gives them Louis’ number.

Nelson gets up and heads out. Shandling comes back in with a cup of coffee.

“What time is it?” Amir says.

“One thirty in the morning,” Shandling says, taking a sip.

“What happened? Can you tell me? ‘Cos I swear to God, I really don’t know. I was passed out in the back, I woke up after we crashed.”

Shandling studies him with no warmth in his eyes. After a minute, he seems to relent. “Charles Hudson called us some time past midnight to report a missing, possibly stolen Ferrari F60,” he says. “Kind of unusual to see on the road these days, especially out in the suburbs, so when we saw your friend pull onto the 101, we initiated pursuit.”

Charles is Jason’s dad. So he hadn't borrowed it, then — it was a joyride. “And he crashed?”

“No, he evaded us for at least two miles first.”

Amir’s head churns. He can’t believe Jason would be that stupid. The information refuses to penetrate his brain.

“And _then_ he crashed?” he says.

“And then he crashed,” Shandling confirms. “He was swerving a lot, and when my backup cut in front of him, he slammed on the brakes and fishtailed off the road. Actually, the three of you are really lucky that we _did_ cut in front of you. If he’d crashed going what he was — shit, seventy, eighty miles an hour? In that car? You’d probably all be dead. ‘Specially you, with no seatbelt.”

Amir’s blood runs cold. “Right,” he mutters.

 

*

 

They stick him in a holding cell in the basement until his dad comes to get him. He’s alone, which is nice, because he can go over everything in his head. But anxiety steadily takes him over until his gut is churning, and then he really wishes he had someone to talk to, or at least access to the Internet.

Shandling finally comes to get him after it feels like a half hour has passed. Amir very leisurely gets to his feet and dusts off his jeans. He’s still pissed about being cuffed and manhandled.

Shandling holds his wrist to the panel on the cell door; it beeps, then unlocks, and he heaves it open with a loud creak and beckons Amir.

“Front desk says your stepfather’s here to pick you up,” he says.

“My stepdad?” he says. “Not my dad?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

Shandling leads Amir out of the dingy holding cell, up a dimly lit staircase, down another hallway and into the reception area he got dragged through earlier. A cop is now sitting behind the visitors desk, doodling on a piece of paperwork. The fluorescent lights pound down sickly white on everything, making Amir’s headache worse.

Liam is sitting there in one of the little chairs. He has his sleeve pushed up and his watch displaying his texts down his forearm. When he hears them, his head jerks up, and he flicks the display away.

“Hey,” he says, crossing the ugly linoleum in a few quick strides and taking Amir hard by the shoulders. “You alright?”

“Yeah.”

“Your face is bloody.”

He’d forgotten his nosebleed, with all that’s happened since then. “I’m okay,” he says.

“Your neck alright?”

“My neck’s fine. They checked me out.”

Liam keeps examining him, then addresses Shandling over his shoulder. “Hey there, Greg,” he says, “remember me?”

Shandling visibly does a double take. “Oh, Liam _Payne_!” he says, and shakes his hand. “Sorry, sorry. You were just so out of context. I didn’t realize this was your stepson.”

“Yeah, yeah, Louis’ my husband… I thought your name sounded familiar, when you called.”

Amir glances between them.

“You know, I don’t think I got the chance to say it at the time, but I really appreciated the highway patrol,” Liam says, “and how you lot handled all that… you especially. Amir, this is the guy who caught that stalker I had a couple years back. He and his partner actually ran him down on foot.”

Amir flicks his eyes over at Shandling, who’s grinning at Liam like an idiot, clearly still pleased by this particular brush with fame. “Just doing our job.”

“Right, right,” Liam says. He wraps an arm around Amir’s shoulders, pulling him to his side. “Listen, I’m sorry about what happened tonight. But my stepson is a good kid. Really smart, graduated early. He doesn’t get in trouble. I wasn’t there, obviously, but I would bet my life that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

He says this all so smoothly, it’s hard not to believe him. Shandling seems to be taking it in. Amir tries to look innocent.

“Look, he resisted arrest,” Shandling finally says, folding his arms. “He shoved my arm. I’m a police officer. I have to take that seriously…” He trails off. “I mean, these are troubled times.”

“I’m sure he was just confused,” Liam says. “You said on the phone that he told you he was asleep in the backseat, and he’d been drinking, boys will be boys…” He tousles Amir’s hair. “Waking up like he did, I reckon he was just disoriented, y’know? He didn’t mean any disrespect. He’s a good kid, seriously. Never been in any kind of trouble before. I’m sure you’ve checked out his record.”

Shandling draws his thin bottom lip into his mouth. “Normally in this situation, the very least I would do is give him a notice to appear.”

“I totally understand. But you know what, mate, he knows he screwed up, and it’s not gonna happen again. We’ll make sure it doesn’t. If we could just forget about this and put it behind us, I’d really appreciate it so much, Greg. That’d be such a massive favor to me and Louis.”

Amir holds his breath, staring up at the cop. Finally, Shandling nods and reaches out his hand. Liam shakes it firmly.

“Alright,” he says, “I’ll exercise some discretion and let him off with a stern warning.” He glances over at Amir. “You understand how serious what happened tonight was?”

“Yeah,” Amir says.

“And your friends are still going to have to answer for what they did.”

“Right, of course,” Liam says. “Do what you have to do. Thanks so much, though.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Tell Tom I said hullo, alright?”

“Will do.” Shandling keeps staring at Amir. “You stay out of trouble, young man, you hear me?”

Amir doesn’t like his tone. “Yeah.”

Liam nudges him.

“Yes, sir.”

Shandling nods, and hands a plastic bag with Amir’s wallet and rings in it over to Liam. As soon as he turns and walks away, Amir aims a middle finger at his back. Liam smacks his hand down in the blink of an eye, though, then wheels him around and starts marching him toward the front door, a hand firmly around the back of his neck.

“You just dodged a big bullet,” he whispers in Amir’s ear, “so watch it.”

They step out into the cool night air and head down the sidewalk toward the parking lot. Amir wonders where Evan and Jason are, and how much trouble they’re in. Jason’s dad won’t press charges for him stealing the car, and he’s got incredible lawyers, but fleeing the police? And Evan’s coke thing sounds bad, too.

“Thanks,” Amir says. “For bullshitting him.”

Liam holds his wrist up; the Range Rover beeps and unlocks. They slide in, and he starts it, then turns to Amir as the engine rumbles to life underneath them. His face is shadowed, lit only by the glow from the dashboard. He looks grim.

“I didn’t bullshit him,” Liam says. “I meant everything I said about you, and he likes me, so he gave you a pass.” He pauses, and when he speaks again, he’s dead serious. “You know, you could have gotten killed tonight. Do you have any idea how worried Louis is?”

“Then why didn’t he come?”

“He thought he’d get too upset and end up making things worse for you. I agreed. We thought I’d be able to defuse the situation.”

Amir looks out the dashboard as they pull out and start heading down the road, toward the highway. “I didn’t fucking do anything wrong. I was wasted, I thought they’d take care of me.”

“You can’t take things like that for granted. These aren’t responsible kids, Amir. They didn’t look out for you before, did they? _You_ have to look out for you. You need a ride? You call Louis, you call me, Zayn, Harry, your sister, you call Sunday, you call a Lyft, a taxi, you go with anyone, _anyone_ but a drunk person.”

“They’re my friends! I had no idea how much Jason drank! How was I supposed to know any of this shit was gonna happen?”

“They could have _killed_ you tonight.” His voice gets really bassy and rough on ‘killed’, like he’s holding back emotion. “Think about that. Really, actually think about it. Think about how much Louis loves you, think about him having to come down here and identify your body — that would absolutely _destroy_ him —”

“ _Stop!_ ”

Liam reaches over and touches his shoulder again. Amir shrugs out from under his hand.

“I don’t know how else to get through to you,” Liam mutters.

Amir swallows back the guilt that lurches up in his throat. “Did you guys call my dad?”

“No, not yet. Louis was going to wait ‘til the morning, he didn’t want to wake them.”

“Yeah,” he scoffs. “Harry needs his beauty sleep.”

“Hey, we can call him if you want. I didn’t think you’d rather get yelled at by both of them at once.”

Amir says nothing for a while. Streetlights pass over them, one by one. “He seemed kind of racist,” he mutters. “That cop.”

“What makes you say that?”

“How about I was the only one who didn’t do anything, but he was extra pissed at me, slammed me around and cuffed me? And when he found my ID, he like, sneered my name."

Liam sighs.

“What, you don’t want to hear that about your boy Greg?”

“Amir, don’t be dense!” he exclaims, sounding really upset for the first time tonight. “He’s not my pal, I could care less about that douchebag, and I’m sure you’re right about him! I would’ve said anything to him to get him to let you off, did you really want underage drinking and resisting arrest on your record when you’re applying to schools? I was protecting you!"

Amir stares down at his forearm. He expected he’d have a mark from where Shandling manhandled him, but there’s nothing, just a dull ache in his muscle. He looks back out the window.

“This wasn’t my fault,” he says. “I know I fucked up. But, like… I never thought Jason would pull something like that.”

Liam looks over at him. “Do you understand now why Louis didn’t come down here? He was a mess when he got that call.”

“How much trouble am I in?”

“He’s just worried right now, he wants you home safe.”

 

*

 

The house is dark when they walk in; the chandelier in the foyer lights up as soon as their feet touch the marble floor, but Liam flicks his wrist to turn it off again. There’s footsteps on the stairs, then, and Amir looks up. Louis is coming down to meet them.

He collars Amir around the neck and hugs him tight for a moment, crushing the air from him.

“Is he okay?” Louis says to Liam over Amir’s shoulder.

“He’s fine,” Liam whispers. “Just a little banged up.”

Hope flares in Amir’s chest that maybe he isn’t in trouble after all, but then Louis pulls back, looking furious, and it’s snuffed.

“What the fuck,” he says. “Sneaking out when you’re grounded? Going to a party and drinking, gettin’ in a car with those idiot friends of yours, letting them drive you drunk —”

“Dad —”

“I’m not fuckin’ done,” he shouts. “Do you know what it’s like to get a call from the police at one in the morning that your son’s been in an accident? D’you know the absolute fucking _hell_ I went through before he said you were alright, and then again when he told me you might be criminally charged?”

Amir wants to yell back at him, but he’s so exhausted and worked up that when he opens his mouth, he starts crying. It feels good to; like he’s purging the poison that’s been building up inside him.

Louis’ jaw tightens up like he’s trying not to react to this. Liam murmurs, “Maybe just let him go to bed, Tommo, we can talk in the morning…”

“You’re in serious trouble,” Louis continues, ignoring him. “Your father’s gonna be furious.”

“Call him! Call him! I don’t _care_ ,” Amir sobs, then hiccups. “I don’t care what he says —“

“What’s goin’ _on_ with you?” Louis exclaims.

“Babe, c’mon,” Liam whispers, and heads off into the parlor.

Louis shoots a hard-eyed look at his back, but snaps, “Fine.” He rounds on Amir. “I want you to go to bed and stay there. We changed the alarm code, by the way, so if you were thinking of sneaking back out —“

“I just want to sleep!” Amir shouts, swiping at his cheeks. 

“Good! You do that!”

Liam comes back with a box of tissues and holds it out to Amir, who grabs a few and crumples them in his fist for later. He doesn't want to do something as vulnerable as blow his nose right now.

He moves around Louis and heads for the stairs, climbing up into the darkness.

 

*

 

“Drink it,” Liam says, pushing a mug of tea into Louis’ hands.

Louis looks down at it sort of listlessly.

“Drink.”

Louis has a sip.

Liam turns back to the stove and puts the kettle away. “You feeling any better than before?” he says.

Louis shrugs. He still hasn’t recovered from the dizzying terror of _Louis Tomlinson? My name is Officer Greg Shandling… your son was in a car accident tonight._ He feels like someone tried to wrench his heart from his chest with pliers, and he managed to stop them, but there’s an ache left from the attempt. He can’t think straight.

“Been a real corker, these last few weeks,” he says sarcastically.

“D’you want to call Zayn now, or tomorrow?”

Louis shrugs. “Tomorrow,” he says. “Don’t want to wake him.”

“ _You_ got woken,” Liam points out gently. “Zayn’s his dad too, and I think he’d want to know. If you were still married to him, he’d be up with you right now.”

“But I’m not. I’m married to you. So.”

Liam exhales.

“He hasn’t been sleeping well lately, is all.”

“Alright...”

“I’m just at my wits end,” Louis says hoarsely. “I didn’t think those boys were that bad an influence. I mean, the utter _stupidity_ of it, I could kill them.”

“It’s this rich kid shit, Tommo. You and I’ve been around enough people who were raised in those kinds of families, you see how insane they get. They don’t live in reality.”

Louis drums his fingers on the island. “But what was I supposed to do? Not send him to the nice private school? I’m meant to send this sensitive, talented kid to fucking military school or something?"

“I don’t think anybody said _that_ , babe —“

"I mean, is it this bad out there? Should we homeschool the twins?”

Liam laughs. “If you think any of us’d make it out alive from that, be my guest.”

He snorts. “I dunno, like. I thought I’d gone through the worst of it with Mims, all those struggles she had in her classes, and all the partying she did in secondary. But her friends were athletes too, and that kept her enough on track… Plus, like, it’s not even the partyin’ at this point. It’s the risk-taking, the disobedience… Mia sometimes came in after curfew, but if I caught her at it and grounded her, she stayed grounded, y’know? She didn’t defy me. And neither did he, ‘til recently.”

“D’you think he’s still upset about this guy who dumped him, maybe acting out about that?”

“Maybe. Christ, I hope not. ‘E’s so much smarter than that.”

“I know he’s really bright, but he’s still just a kid,” Liam says. “I always felt like he was mentally way ahead of the curve and maybe, emotionally, a bit behind. I mean, he’s always been sensitive, he’s always taken things to heart.”

“I know,” Louis murmurs. His eyes prickle. “Sometimes I forget he’s still that way. Got all these defense mechanisms…”

“Hmm, sounds familiar,” Liam says in a fond voice, reaching across the island to squeeze Louis’ hand. Louis chuckles. “Hey, you remember what Shandling looked like, right? Big guy, like six foot? Amir says he manhandled him a bit.”

“What, seriously? Did he hurt him?”

“Just scared him, I think, but isn’t that ridiculous? Who manhandles a skinny kid?”

“That’s the filth for you, innit? Amir’s good at pissing people off, mind… comes by it honestly.”

“Still."

Louis sighs. “I don’t know what to do,” he admits. “No, I know what I want to do —I want to wring Jason’s neck.”

“I know. Me too.”

“Fucking — a _police_ chase?”

“I know. I still can’t even believe it.”

“Kids make mistakes, we know this, but I never did _anythin’_ like that. The worst, dodgiest shit we’ve done, none of it was nearly that bad. And I can’t imagine that Amir would’ve ever been in a situation like that if he hadn’t known these kids since he was six, and trusted them.”

“He said that, yeah.” Liam nods and clears his throat. “He said he thought he could trust them to get him home safe.”

“That’s twice now they’ve failed,” Louis says. “You were right about Jason, you know. You always thought he was trouble.”

Liam smiles thinly. “I take zero pleasure in being right about this.”

“I always thought it’d be Evan, myself,” Louis says. “I mean, you remember when he got kicked out of Groton, year nine, and had to come back here?

“Right, yeah,” Liam says. “Didn’t we have his parents over for coffee right after?”

“Yeah, and they were like, oh, our poor little Evan, been kicked out over a prank...”

“But I seem to remember he didn’t even mastermind that. Just went along with it and got pinched. So maybe that’s his issue, is he gets caught up in shit like this.”

“Yeah, I think Jason’s the real problem in this situation. it’s one thing to drink drive, it’s one thing take your dad’s car for a joyride…”

“That’s the thing, that’s a three _million_ dollar car he stole, y’know? This is why they’re so fucked up, these trust-fund kids. They’ve got no sense of proportion, or stakes, or consequences. Your tea’s getting cold.”

Louis takes another sip. “Yeah, exactly. Y’know, sometimes I think we shouldn’t’ve let him graduate early. He needs structure, he needs a routine, I _know_ that. Why’d we let him do that? Why didn’t Zayn stop me? He had his doubts. I should’ve fuckin’ listened.”

“Look, you were proud of him, and it didn’t seem like it’d be a problem at the time. It even seemed like it could be a good opportunity.”

“You know I worry I’ve fucked them up, him and Mims. I wasn’t ready to be a dad, ‘specially not to two kids, and neither was Zayn… there’s shit I question every day…”

“Stop it,” Liam says sternly. “You’ve got to stop beating yourself up and second guessing everything. You’re a good dad, I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, and we’re gonna see him through this rough patch, alright?”

“I want to believe that,” Louis murmurs.

Liam comes around the island and wraps him up in a hug. “Then believe it.”

Louis buries his face in Liam’s warm chest, taking comfort in him. “Thanks.”

“Hey…” Liam kisses him on the head. “Dream team. Gotta stay tough. Parenting’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

“Right, well, metaphorically me nipples are bleeding.”

Liam laughs. “You know, might be worth taking him to see a therapist.”

Louis clutches at the back of his shirt. “I know. I was thinkin’ the same thing.”

“If he is bipolar, and they can catch it early… he wouldn’t have to suffer the way Zayn did, y’know?”

“I don’t want him to ‘ave to deal with that at all.”

“We’ve got no idea if he has it or not. It was just a thought.” Liam kisses him on the head again.

“I smoked a _lot_ of weed when I was pregnant with him,” Louis whispers. “Like, before I found out. Was drinking like a fish around then, too. My doctor said it was fine, but he’s probably got holes in his fuckin’ brain.”

Liam has a good laugh at this. “Babe, he's smart as shit, I don’t think that had any impact.”

“Easy for you to say! Maybe the holes are in the impulse control parts!”

“If he’s got holes in his impulse control, I’d say that’s more genetic than environmental.”

Louis socks him in the side, and Liam chuckles. “You want to try and get some rest?”

Louis laughs too, drawing back and smiling up at him. “Y’know, before we got woken up, I was sleeping like a baby,” he says coyly.

Liam’s eyes twinkle. “Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. You dicked me down real good.”

Liam leans in to kiss him. Louis wraps his arms around Liam’s neck, clinging to him.

“Let’s go back to bed,” he whispers. He wants to be held, and then he wants the peace of sleep.

“Okay,” Liam whispers back.

 

*

 

Before they do, though, Louis stops in Amir’s room.

His lights are off, and he’s lying in bed, but he’s awake and scrolling through his tablet.

Louis comes over and sits next to his feet. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Amir murmurs.

“Any news about Evan and Jason?”

“Yeah,” Amir says. “Evan’s sister texted me a couple minutes ago.”

“What’d she say?”

“She’s pissed, ‘cos she’s gonna have to bail him out with her credit card. Their parents wanted to let him spend the night locked up, I guess, to teach him a lesson or something.”

“And Jason?”

“She said his dad was there trying to post bail, yelling at everybody, like, ‘Do you know who I am?’ But they said he was gonna have to wait ‘til the morning for a judge, since they think Jason’s a flight risk.”

Louis squeezes Amir’s calf. “You feeling alright?”

Amir sets his tablet down and rubs his eyes. “Yeah,” he mutters. “Just my head hurts.”

“Did you get checked out?”

“Yeah, they looked me over at the station. I’m fine.”

“Good. You take some Advil?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. Good.”

“Dad…” Amir finally looks at him. Louis holds his gaze in the darkness. “I’m sorry.”

Louis swallows over a lump that rises in his throat. “You don’t know what it’s like, as a parent. You don’t understand how scary it is for me when you put yourself in danger like this.”

“I don’t mean to,” Amir says. His voice catches. “I don’t know why shit like this keeps happening. I dunno if it’s ‘cos we’re like, all stressed out, or about to go our separate ways, or something. But everyone’s been doing way too much lately.”

“D’you finally get it, after tonight? That you’re not invincible?”

“I know. I know. We could’ve died, I know. Look, I want you to know I didn’t — I only drank. I didn’t do any of the coke. That was Evan’s thing. I didn’t even know he had it. I swear.”

Louis can tell from his voice that he’s not lying. “I believe you.”

Amir exhales. “Okay… good.”

There’s still dried blood on his face. Louis gets up and goes into the bathroom, dampening a washcloth. He brings it back and turns the bedside lamp on so he can wipe Amir off properly.

“I think you ought to think hard about if Jason’s somebody you want in your life,” he says.

“I already am!”

“Hey. Don’t you fuckin’ get mouthy with me, alright?” Louis smooths the washcloth over his cheek. “You’re still in trouble, don’t forget.”

“Sorry. It’s just insane. We’ve been best friends for like, ten years. I thought I knew him.”

“Sad fact of life is, you don’t ever really know people ‘til you see them in certain situations.”

“Yeah.” Amir sniffs. “You don’t think my nose is broken, do you?”

Louis tweaks his nose, which is a nearly even mix of Zayn’s and his own. “That hurt?”

“Only a little.”

“Reckon you’re fine, then.”

Amir looks down at his bedsheets, playing with the fringe on a blanket. “I don’t wanna make excuses, or anything,” he says. “But, um.” He stops himself.

“But what?”

“I’ve just, I’ve, um,” he stumbles. “Maybe, like, felt kind of… not good, for a while now.”

Louis’ heart clenches. “D’you want to talk to someone about it?”

“I want to talk to Dad,” he says. His eyes fill with tears. “But…”

“But what?”

Amir shakes his head and doesn’t say anything else.

“I’ve felt that way, too, before,” Louis says. “You can always talk to me.”

“You don’t get it,” Amir says. “You’re different. You’re like Mia.”

“How’s that?”

He shrugs. “Tough.”

Louis reaches out and strokes his hair. “You’re tough.”

“I’m not.” Tears spill down Amir’s cheeks. “I’m really not. I’m such a pussy… Everything hurts me so bad. Every shitty thing. And I’m so afraid of everything. I’m afraid of growing up, I’m afraid of moving on... of being alone. I feel like everyone’s gonna leave me and forget about me.”

“I’ve felt that way too,” Louis says softly.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Everything you just said. And your sister does too. She just acts tough, she thinks she has to put on a brave face for you and me.”

“I didn’t know,” Amir says, wiping his eyes.

“Oh, sonny. C’mere.”

Amir sits up. Louis pulls him into his arms, cradling the back of his head.

“Everything is gonna be fine,” he whispers to him. “I promise. No one’s gonna forget you. And the older you get, the less it feels that way.”

Amir buries his face in Louis’ shoulder, clutching him tight. “Sorry,” he chokes out, “I don't know why I keep crying all the time, I feel so stupid."

"'Cos you're keeping all this shit trapped inside you, kiddo. You gotta just let it out."

"And my head hurts so bad…”

“It’s alright… you’re gonna be fine.”

 

CALABASAS, OCTOBER 31, 2034

Louis sleeps badly and has frantic, queasy dreams that culminate in a nightmare.

He’s pregnant again, somehow, in spite of his tied tubes. He’s panicked about it and desperate for an abortion, but everyone keeps dismissing him. “What’s one more?” they all say. “You’re happily married, why wouldn't you just have the baby?”

Everywhere he turns, there’s a warped, funhouse mirror version of one of his loved ones, accusing him of being horribly selfish. Even Mia, which hurts worst of all.

And he can’t find Liam to tell him that he doesn’t want another baby. He races around Los Angeles, and Liam is nowhere — Louis finds he’s alone, completely alone. The city is empty. He’s running in circles without getting anywhere when the buildings and streets start to crumble around him.

Louis wakes with a start at five, clammy and disturbed. He lies still for a moment while he catches his breath.

The day hasn’t dawned quite yet — a tentative shaft of sunlight is peeking between the curtains and creeping onto the carpet. Liam is zonked out next to him, peaceful and drooling. Louis studies him for a while, and then he stirs like he senses Louis’ gaze.

Louis leans in and presses kisses to his cheeks. “Where’d you go?” he murmurs.

“Huh?” Liam says, opening his eyes a slit.

“Nothing, love.”

Liam reaches out and pulls him in roughly. Louis chuckles and presses his face to Liam’s throat, kissing him some more, then rubs his beard on him to tickle him in the way he likes.

Liam laughs, duly tickled. “What you doing up so early?” he says, his voice hoarse but sweet.

“Had a shit dream.”

Liam wraps him up hard in his arms and squeezes him like he’s trying to crush the nightmare from Louis’ body. “Your brain’s so overactive…”

Louis closes his eyes. He loves when Liam goes boa constrictor on him. “I know.”

“Go back to sleep, I’ll protect you.”

“From me own brain?"

Liam pets his hair. “‘Sactly.”

 

*

 

He rings Zayn around eight that morning.

“I’m coming over,” he says, before Louis has even gotten halfway through the story. “I’m — hang on.” He puts his hand over the receiver, and there’s muffled talking, then he says, “Alright, yeah, Harry’s gonna postpone his meeting. I’ll be over in thirty.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, Louis! Christ!”

The crash makes the news. The first story is posted around eight thirty, on the website for CBS Los Angeles. Amir is only mentioned as a “third male passenger, 17, who police have declined to identify due to his age.” But Evan and Jason have their mugshots plastered on the front page, side by side.

“Fucking hell,” Louis mutters, sipping his coffee.

Liam glances over from the breakfast nook where he’s pouring cereal for the twins, who have so far been too sleepy to take any interest in this morning’s drama. “What?”

“C’mere, come look at this.”

Liam brushes his hands off and comes over to the island, peering over Louis’ shoulder at the laptop.

_Driver Jason Hudson, 18, has been charged with reckless endangerment of a minor, DUI, and fleeing by vehicle from police pursuit. Hudson is the son of billionaire venture capitalist, Charles Hudson, the chairman and CEO of the Fortune 100 conglomerate holding company Atlantic Global._

_“These charges are an outrageous smear job against a highly respected family,” said Rick Gables, an attorney for the Hudson family, while escorting Hudson from the courtroom where he was arraigned on Tuesday morning. “Jason is an innocent victim in all of this, and he will be exonerated as soon as the facts are made clear.”_

_Evan Stewart, a passenger at the time of the crash, was charged with misdemeanor possession of cocaine. Stewart, also 18, is the son of Carter Stewart, CEO of The Stewart Group, Inc., a telecommunications company. ( **Editor’s note** : The Stewart Group owns CBS2.)_

_At press time, the Stewart family could not be reached for comment._

“Holy shit,” Liam mutters. “This is like an episode of Gossip Girl.”

Louis snorts. “Wait, reckless endangerment of a minor? You don’t think that means Amir’s gonna get called to testify?”

“If this goes to court,” Liam says, “if Jason’s dad doesn’t, I dunno, pay off the judges —“

The twins look up.

“Testify for what?” Max chirps.

“Nothing,” they chorus.

Sunday comes into the kitchen then, dressed for school. “Hey,” she says, “what happened with Amir? A bunch of people from school are texting me asking if he’s in jail?”

“Jail?” Patrick pipes up.

“He’s not in _jail_ , you lot,” Louis says sternly. “He’s upstairs icing his face. His idiot friend got them into a car accident last night, but he’s fine.”

Sunday peers between Liam and Louis at the article. “ _Fleeing from police_?” she exclaims.

“Sweetie,” Liam whispers, “not in front of the boys, alright?”

“Why don’t we get to know anything,” Patrick complains. “We’re almost ten, we want to know things! I know stuff, I know what crimes are!”

“Finish your cereal, love,” Louis tells him.

The twins shoot him a mutinous look, but return to their breakfast.

“Oh my God,” Sunday says, still scanning the article. “This is crazy. Everyone’s going to be coming up to me at school today... Can I just stay home?”

“Do you still have that math test last period?” Liam says.

“Yeah,” she groans.

“Then you’ve gotta go, sorry. Text me if paps show up, though, and I’ll come scoop you.”

“Alright…”

“And remember they’re not allowed on private property, you can sic the security guards on them if they are.”

Sunday goes over to the coffee maker, grumbling.

“How long d’you reckon we’ve got ‘til it leaks he was in the car?” Louis whispers to Liam.

Liam shrugs. “Worst case scenario, couple hours? I dunno. We should call the reps, give them a heads up.”

“Yeah, I was just gonna say.”

Their watches all chime at once — someone’s just walked into the house.

“OI,” Zayn shouts from the front hall. “LOUIS!”

Louis slams his laptop shut and slips off his barstool, hustling into the foyer. Zayn is standing there with a familiar look of wild-eyed parental worry. “Happy fuckin’ Halloween,” he says with a wry laugh.

Louis laughs too. “Happy Halloween, mate.”

“Where is he?”

“In his room,” Louis says.

Zayn immediately goes for the stairs. He has a certain look on his face — it’s rare, but it always indicates he’s about to lower the boom on one of the kids.

“Listen,” Louis calls after him, “we talked last night, and —“

“Lemme have my own time with him, Louis,” Zayn shouts back without even pausing.

“Alright…”

 

*

 

Everyone’s been seen off to school before Zayn and Amir come back downstairs. Liam gets the twins ready while Louis paces in the foyer, texting with Mia, who’s desperate for details and says she’s been getting the same deluge of texts from her former classmates that Sunday has.

“All set,” Liam calls as the boys hurry down the staircase ahead of him.

“Wait,” Louis says, snatching the twins around the shoulders, “one last thing.”

He starts tickling them; they struggle in his arms, giggling and protesting “ _Da-_ ad” in their sweet nine-year-old voices.

Louis stops and tousles their hair, smiling at them. “Alright, alright,” he says. “Can you boys do something for me? Don’t grow up, alright?”

Patrick nods, and Max salutes him. Louis laughs.

Liam joins them, then, and wraps the three of them up tight in his arms, squeezing them into a bear hug. “My best boys,” he says, with a sentimental quality in his voice.

“Our best Liam,” Louis says, slapping him on the back.

Liam laughs, then lifts his wrist to look at his watch behind Patrick’s head. “Oh, sh — shoot. We gotta go, little lads.”

“Noo,” Patrick protests. “Let’s all stay home today, Amir needs us.”

“Yeah, he needs ice packs,” Max adds.

“Nice try,” Louis says to them.

They usher the twins out the door, and while they race each other to the car, Louis gives Liam a kiss goodbye.

“Don’t forget,” Liam says, “we’ve got that listening session at Capital this afternoon.”

Louis claps a hand to his mouth. “Shit — totally, completely slipped my mind.”

He laughs. “Thought it might have done. Want me to call Hec and cancel?”

“No, no, God no. I’ll just, like — I dunno, I have to see what Zayn wants to do today, but.” He shifts his weight. He’s barefoot, and his sock feet are uncomfortable on the cool stone of the porch. “I’ll text you in the next half hour, but let’s say it’s a go.”

Liam’s dark eyes search his face. “You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. Oh, by the way — remember you’ve got to walk them all the way in, so you can ask Miss What’s-her-name to sign you up again for Room Dad.”

“Right, Miss Tina.”

“Yeah, her. And tell the twins not to eat too much candy at school today? You know how they get, and then they just rile each other up… tell them to save it for trick-or-treatin’ tonight.”

“Got it. Tina, candy, Tina, candy.”

Louis presses a kiss to his other cheek. “Thanks, love.”

Smiling, Liam pinches him on the arse, then strides off to the car. Louis smiles back at him as he goes, but the smile fades as Liam drives off, and then his thoughts absorb him again.

He hangs out in the den while he waits for Amir and Zayn to resurface. Finally, they do; they appear in the doorway, both looking fed up and sleep-deprived.

“I’m gonna take Amir out on the boat today,” Zayn says.

“So he can kill me and dump me overboard,” Amir says.

Zayn shoots him a look. “So we can _talk_.”

“It was a joke, Dad.”

“Alright, boys,” Louis says. “Be careful, have a good chat. Hey, Zayn — me and Payno have a meeting today, so I’m out of pocket, and we won’t be back here before four.”

“That’s fine,” Zayn says. “I planned to spend most of the day with Amir.”

Amir doesn’t look happy to hear this.

“That works,” Louis says. “But if you need me, just ring me.”

“Will do.” Zayn gives him a little wave, then turns on his heel. Amir looks balefully after him.

“Go,” Louis urges. “Go talk to him, alright?”

“Alright,” Amir sighs.

 

*

 

Sunday’s hanging out with her friends under one of the big ferns in the library when the first gossip hound of the day approaches her. They’re all sitting there studying for their math test in silence, eating Luna Bars, and a pair perfectly pedicured feet in Gucci slides walks into her line of vision.

Sunday looks up from the textbook she’s got open on her tablet. It’s Jessica Talbot, who’s never spoken to her before. She’s one of the most popular girls in their grade.

“Hi?” Sunday says.

Jessica gives her a cloying smile. “Hi,” she says, and takes a seat on the floor in front of her.

Sunday’s friends look up then, confused.

“I’m just wondering,” Jessica says, dropping her voice into a hush, “is everything okay with Amir?”

She’s clearly trolling for gossip. She and Amir aren’t close; they party together, but he thinks she’s an idiot, he’s said so before.

“He’s fine,” Sunday says.

“Oh, good. So he’s not in trouble or anything?”

Sunday feels a funny surge of protectiveness toward Amir, suddenly. She gives her a fake smile right back. “No. He’s totally fine.”

“D’you know anything about what’s up with Jason and Evan?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Oka-ay, cool,” Jessica says, looking visibly deflated.

“Yup.”

Jessica studies Sunday for a long moment, then, as if she’s noticed something about her. Sunday begins to grow uncomfortable under her gaze.

“It’s too bad we’ve never really talked before,” Jessica says. “We should hang out sometime. I’d love to do your makeup.”

“My makeup?”

“Yeah. You have, like, really great bone structure.”

“Oh. Thanks?”

Jessica gets up, then, and leaves them with a little wave.

Next to Sunday, Kate snorts. “The fuck was that?”

“I have nooo idea,” Sunday says, returning to her tablet.

 

*

 

Zayn and Amir are silent for almost the entire drive to the marina. Their talk in Amir’s room had been a one-sided dressing down from Zayn, hitting all the expected points (“You’ve disappointed me and Louis/we expect better/you’re too smart for this/what you did was stupid and dangerous/you’re getting to an age where we need to be able to trust you to make good decisions/you’re grounded until January first/you need to apologize to Louis for scaring him/we deserve way more respect and obedience than you’ve shown us lately/Hey, _youlookatmewhenI’mtalkingtoyou_ ,”) and now they’re both worn out from it.

When they’re close enough to smell the ocean, Amir asks him, “What are the girls gonna be for Halloween?”

Zayn clears his throat. “Toni’s gonna be a witch, Marlena’s gonna be a cowboy.”

“Cute.”

“Yeah.” He runs his tongue over his teeth. “Y’know, Harry blew his whole morning so I could come be with you.”

It’s the worst thing he could have said.

“I didn’t ask you to do that,” Amir snaps.

“It’s my job. I’m your father. I’m just sayin’ since I _am_ here, I’d like it if we could ‘ave an actual discussion about what’s been going on with you lately. And why you’ve decided to cop this ridiculous fucking attitude with me, ‘cos I’ve had it up to here with that shit.”

Amir remains quiet. He feels the truth in his throat, threatening to jump out of his mouth, and he’s afraid to give it the opportunity to.

 

*

 

They work together in silence to get the boat started up and then navigate it out of the slip. It’s a bright, bright day, and the white sun pounds down mercilessly like an all-seeing eye.

“Wind’s against us,” Zayn says, climbing up onto the deck and perching his sunglasses atop his head. “We need a spring line, can you get the motor going?”

“Yeah.” Amir bends over it, yanking the starter rope.

“Gentle at first,” Zayn calls, “gentle —“

“I’m being gentle!”

But he’s not, really, and he knows it. He’s so frustrated and hungover and tired that he can’t possibly focus to do it properly. All he wants to do is smash something.

Zayn comes over to him, and Amir’s afraid he’s about to yell, but he just closes his hands over Amir’s and guides him.

The motor roars to life.

“Thanks,” Amir mutters.

Zayn squeezes his shoulder and hops back onto the deck, letting the mainsail out. “Just takes a bit of patience.”

Once they’re out of the slip, Zayn comes over and sits next to the tiller. He glances at his watch. “Your sister wants to know why you’re not answering her texts,” he says. “She says she’d appreciate knowing you ‘aven’t died of some slow-acting traumatic brain injury.”

Amir holds up his bare wrists. “Flying blind today,” he says.

Zayn chuckles and starts typing back to her.

“Tell her it’s not personal,” he adds. “I have like three hundred texts, I just didn’t feel like dealing with it.”

“I’m sure she understands.”

The bay is quiet and beautiful. A few people are out, but none of them are close enough to wave to. Amir stares at the water as they cut through it, watching the motion of the waves.

Zayn cuts the motor when they’re a few miles out, then gets up and sits across from him, giving him a steady look.

“I want you to talk to me,” he says. “Really talk to me. I want you to tell me why you’re so angry at me. ‘Cos it can’t just be that I wasn’t here this summer.”

Amir’s eyes fill with tears almost automatically. “It’s not,” he chokes out. His face and chest are burning with painful heat, and his heart is pounding.

“Okay,” Zayn says, eerily calm. “What’s going on, then?”

He can’t say it. He can’t. But he chokes on a breath, and then it’s tumbling out.

“I know you cheated on Dad,” Amir says, cutting his gaze away, back to the water. “I know the divorce was your fault. Mia knows too. She’s the one who told me.”

Zayn stands up and walks away, running his hands over his scalp. Amir expects him to swear or something, but he’s dead silent.

“How long?” he finally says. “How long have you known?”

Amir is surprised. “Uh,” he says. “For a couple weeks? But Mia said she found out early this year.”

Zayn comes back over, sitting next to him this time. His eyes are bright, but he’s not crying. “I’ve thought about this moment a lot,” he says, sounding hoarse. “Hoped it’d never come.”

Amir says nothing. His pulse is still going very fast, but he feels calmer now that he said it. The boat sways slightly as a gust blows over them.

“I just feel like we could’ve kept being a family,” he says, “and you like, threw that away? You threw all of us away.”

Zayn shakes his head. “That was never my intention.”

“Well, that’s what happened, Dad!” he cries. “We aren’t a family! You _have_ a family! You have Harry and the girls, and me and Mia are like these, these… timeshare kids that belong to a family that doesn’t exist anymore! And _you_ did that! You dogged on Dad! What the fuck did he do to deserve that?”

“Amir…”

“If you were _our_ dad, only our dad, you wouldn’t be able to vanish on us for five months —”

Zayn puts a hand on his knee. “Please let me talk,” he says. “Please let me get my thoughts together. I understand you’re angry. _Astaghfirullah_.”

Amir goes quiet. They sit there for a while, until the wind and sea grow hypnotic, transformative. He starts to feel like he could say or feel anything out here.

“Your dad and I had a difficult relationship,” Zayn finally says. “None of what I’m saying is me makin’ excuses for what I did. I’m not. But we were young. I know you know we didn’t plan either of you kids. That’s not to say we didn’t cherish you comin’ into our lives. You two were the best thing that had ever happened to me.” His voice gets thick with emotion, and he clears his throat. “When I got clean, I did it for you two. But havin’ two kids, that fast… that can be tough on a relationship, ‘specially when it’s early on, when you aren’t sure what you are to each other. I felt like I owed it to him, that stability  — I got him in trouble, and he had to leave that tour, and he just got absolutely eviscerated for it. Everyone blamed him for the band breaking up, even though he was probably the one who wanted it to stay together the most, and that just killed him. Shook his confidence a lot.”

“I never knew that.”

“Besides, you know, we loved you both so much, it made us want to try to make it work. I wanted you two to have what I grew up havin’. And for five years, we tried to give you that.”

“Did you love him?”

“Yeah,” Zayn says. “‘Course. I loved Louis to death. I still love him, in a different way.”

“Then why’d you do that to him?”

“It’s complicated, Amir.”

“Try to uncomplicate it,” he says. “‘Cos to me it just sounds shitty and cowardly.”

“It was,” Zayn says. “It was cowardly.”

He sits back and leans his elbow on the edge of the deck, sighing. Amir glances up at him for the first time in a while.

“I did some cowardly shit, back then,” Zayn mutters, rubbing at his goatee. “Your dad was always braver than me, in certain ways. But I was, y’know... I do want you to know I was sick. I was fighting really hard to keep everythin’ under control, to have a career, to be a good dad, to be a good husband, to hide my alcoholism. And at a certain point it just all started getting away from me.”

“Why didn’t you just, like, ask for help?” Amir says.

“I did. I went to rehab for a little while, when things first started goin’ south. But I didn’t put my all into it… I didn’t think there was anything that could be done for me. And I was too prideful to admit how bad a shape I was in.”

Amir looks down at his shoes. One of his laces is undone.

“I didn’t cheat on your dad ‘cos I wanted to throw our family away,” Zayn says. “It was a compulsion. It was a sickness. I wasn’t happy, I was at the end of my rope, and I think a certain part of me, like… wanted to live down to the negative expectations people ‘ad for me. I thought me and Louis could move past it, but I think I underestimated, um…”

Amir glances up. Zayn is shaking his head.

“Your dad never felt safe with me,” he says, his voice even hoarser. He smiles mirthlessly. “When I left the band, that hurt him really deep. I don’t think he ever got to the point where he truly felt like he could trust me not to hurt him or leave him again. And ultimately, I didn’t feel like I could provide to him what he needed in a marriage. We both resented each other for that mismatch.”

“But I remember you being happy,” he says quietly.

“Yeah, we ‘ad a lot of happy moments. We had a lot of fun together. There was shit you didn’t see, though. I honestly think Yasmeen saw a bit more of it. He wasn’t perfect either, we fought nasty. He hurt me, too. But he was a saint when it came to you kids, and I hurt him bad. In more ways than just the cheating.”

Amir picks up a stick that had blown into the boat and leans over the deck, dragging it along the surface of the water as they drift.

“I always looked up to you so much,” he says. The words hurt as they come out of him, like they’re a string of barbed wire being yanked up out of his throat. “I always wanted to be you more than anyone else. After Mia told me, like.” He stops, gathering himself. “I didn’t even know who I wanted to be anymore. ‘Cos it’s not a guy who cheats on Dad. Like… I can’t believe he’d ever do anything to deserve that.”

Amir chokes up. He can’t continue. He keeps thinking of Louis in flashes: Louis holding him up at the sink so he could wash his hands when he was still too small to see over the counter. Louis always somewhere in the house, making up little songs about whatever he was doing, always there when Amir needed him. Louis cheering the house down at his first piano recital, pulling him into a bear hug afterward. _I’m so proud of you, sonny boy, so proud of you._ Louis wiping his tears and bandaging his knees.

Amir is sobbing silently now, tears streaming down his face, his throat aching. He tries to stop, but he only cries harder.

Zayn sits there, looking out at the horizon like he can’t bear the expression on his son’s face.

“More than anybody,” Amir sobs, “I wanted to be _you!_ How could you do that to my fucking _dad!_ ”

Tears start trickling down Zayn’s cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” he chokes out. “I am. You ‘ave no idea. I never wanted either of you to know. I prayed for years that you’d never find out.”

Amir sniffs and blinks, trying to gather himself. “Well, we did.”

“Who told Yasmeen? D’you know?”

“Just some guy who used to work with the guy you fucked.”

Zayn cringes. “Don’t use that vulgar language with me. I’m still your father. I expect you to respect me even when you’re angry with me.”

“Sorry.”

“Amir,” he says, wiping his eyes, “the man you’ve grown up knowing, the man you grew up admiring, that’s not the same man that cheated on Louis.”

“What, like you got replaced with a pod person?”

To his surprise, Zayn actually laughs at that. “No,” he says, “but I went to rehab, and I did a lot of work on myself, and I got healthy. I went back to God. I learned how to love myself and how to be worthy of that love. I became the kind of man a son could look up to. And the fact that my past mistakes have made you doubt all that is breaking my fuckin’ heart.”

Amir swallows. He feels cleansed by his tears, and more peaceful than he did a minute ago. Words are coming more easily, now.

“I can’t just get over it like that,” he says. “It’s been really hard for me to know about this.”

Zayn looks wounded, but he nods. “You haven’t said anythin’ to Louis, have you?”

“No. Neither has Mia.”

“Alright, good. Don’t say anything to him, don’t even bring it up. He never wanted you two to know.”

Amir wipes at his cheeks again. “That’s the thing I don’t get,” he says, “I feel like you’ve always been really protective of Dad, and nice to him even after you got divorced, always like, checking up on him…”

“It’s ‘cos of the way I hurt him, Amir, not in spite of it.”

“Oh.”

“I hope this can be the start of a new chapter for you and me, as you’re becomin’ an adult,” Zayn says. “I know it’s hard to realize your parents are just people, and we’ve got flaws like anyone else. But I hope I can teach you by example that being a good man isn’t about being perfect, it’s about learnin’ from your mistakes, and growing, and maturing. It’s about healing yourself with honesty and true reflection.”

Amir looks down at his hands, rubbing his palms together.

“How’s that sound to you?”

“It sounds alright,” Amir says softly.

“I know you feel like you’re stuck in this chaotic cycle, lately. I know you feel lost. But you just have to ask us for help. We’re here to help you.”

Amir’s vision blurs. Tears are filling his eyes again.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Then, um, I think I want some help.”

Zayn comes over and wraps his arms around him, pulling Amir to his chest. For the first time in a month, Amir relaxes into his warm embrace.

“I got you,” Zayn whispers, stroking his hair. “You’re fine.”

Amir closes his eyes. The boat creaks softly under them. Zayn’s hand keeps moving over his head, soothing him.

“Maybe you, me and your sister ought to start going to Friday service again,” Zayn says.

Amir laughs.

“I’m serious! I’ve let you slip, that’s on me. It’s been really important to my sobriety.”

“Listen... you know I’m kinda skeptical on all that.”

“Yeah, the God bit, I know, and that’s fine, but that’s not what I’m talking about. The rest of it gives you cornerstones to hang your life on. Anyone can use that, I don’t care what they believe.”

“I guess,” Amir murmurs.

“Talk to your sister, she’s on top of it.”

“Please! She just likes the holidays.”

Zayn snorts. “Hey, when she told you, um… about what we talked about…”

“She forgives you, Dad. Don’t worry.”

“Okay,” he says quietly. “She really hid that well. I had no idea.”

Amir thinks of what Louis said, about how she feels being the oldest.

“Yeah,” he says.

 

*

 

Hec’s band is called Kosmonauta. They’re as good as Liam said, but Louis isn’t half as engaged as he’d like to be. He’s sitting next to Liam at a circular table only ten feet back from the dais the band is performing on, so he can’t check his texts without being rude, but he’s on tenterhooks waiting for their reps to let him know that Amir’s been named in this story.

The band takes a break before they play the last song in their set. Most of them go out to smoke, while the drummer goes into the sound booth to argue with the audio engineer about something.

Louis tips his head back, staring up at the egg-carton bumps of the soundproof ceiling. He’s half-tempted to go outside and bum one off the smokers.

“Hey,” Liam says. “You’ve been quiet.”

“Sorry. Just been trying to concentrate.”

“What d’you think?”

“I think they’re great,” Louis says, bringing his chin back down to earth. He bumps Liam’s knee with his own under the table. “Bit rough, but I see loads of potential.”

“They’re yours if you want them,” Liam says.

He laughs. “You make ‘em sound like a litter of puppies.”

Liam laughs too, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Happy Halloween, here’s a basket of puppies.”

“No, yeah, I’d love to. They seem like good guys.”

“They are, they are.”

They’re quiet for a moment.

“Thinking about Amir?” Liam says.

He sighs. “Yeah. And just, I dunno. Life.”

“Life in general?”

“My life.”

Liam looks confused. “Your life?”

“Yeah,” Louis murmurs.

“What’s wrong with your life?”

“Ah, nothing, just…”  He shrugs. “I just ‘ad this thought this morning, when I was standing there, y’know, barefoot, talkin’ to you about the twins, and antsy to get back inside, ‘cos of Amir… Just, like. So much of my life is me kids. And you know I love being a dad. It’s just not what I envisioned, and it feels like it happened when I wasn’t looking.”

Liam lays a hand on Louis’ thigh and squeezes. “You’re so much more than just the kids.”

“I know… but a lot of the time I don’t feel that way.” He can feel Liam about to grow defensive, so he quickly adds, “It’s not that we don’t split the childcare fairly, ‘cos we do. But one parent’s always got to be more the carer, that’s just how it ends up, and I don’t think I’m making shit up if I say it’s been me.”

“No,” Liam says quietly, “that wouldn’t be wrong.”

“Even when it comes to Sunday, ‘cos she’s like a daughter to me.”

“You’ve been a dad to her, yeah, you really stepped up. I don’t deny that at all.”

“And you’ve never had to be pregnant, or recover from having a baby…”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Never had your back fucked up for life from it.”

“No,” Liam agrees.

“I dunno…” Louis sucks at his teeth. “I know I’m the one who carried ‘em, I know, like, it’s a different bond. I get that. And I didn’t want to be away from them when they were babies, any of them. But I just — I never expected that getting pregnant would stop me being a person.”

“C’mon, you’re a person —“

“I know I’m a _person_ , like — I just feel like I never got the chance to put my whole heart into anything musically but the band, y’know? Like, I tried a solo career, but it was so hard with raising two little kids and everythin’ else that was going on… I’m really proud of my second album, and the fans were so great about it, but I still never really got the momentum behind me that I needed. It was such an uphill battle, and I just didn’t have the energy to advocate for myself the way I should’ve been doing. And then with the management shit, it’s been hard, ‘cos we’re in LA, y’know? I’m competing with such big outfits… and ‘course, the second I started trying to pursue that, I got pregnant with twins and I was out of commission for nearly two years. Shit just keeps wrecking my fuckin’ momentum.”

He rubs at his eyes. Liam is still squeezing his thigh.

“So now I just manage a _little_ , and I write a _little_ , and I parent a lot. And I’m not accusing you of anything here, Payno, I’m really not. It’s probably part my fault, just being, like, lazy or scared.”

“You’re not _lazy_. Look, maybe you’re feeling like this ‘cos this band hiatus has been dragging on so long.”

Louis lets out a hiccupy laugh. “But that’s not it, either, ‘cos I just want to be someone on me own,” he says. “The kids are all gonna grow up and leave me, and someday the band’s gonna wither away for good, and then who am I gonna be?”

“My favorite person,” Liam says very seriously.

“Besides that?”

“Oh, Louis — I mean, who am _I_? I haven’t been doing much in the solo department either, lately. You still write for people, you write more than I do!"

“Yeah, but you still produce things, and do features! I miss performing, you know how much I miss that."

“You could absolutely do features,” Liam says, nudging him. “There’s people who’d love to work with you again, I know there are, ‘cos they come right up to me! They ask me about you! I’ve _told_ you that.”

“I know,” Louis murmurs. “I know, I spent a long time avoiding pursuing that. It’s just been exhausting, y’know? Five kids...”

“I get it.”

“And I didn’t even do _that_ right! I can’t even stop me son from defying me and running off to go put his life in danger!"

“Louis, Louis…”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know I’m in this, like, self-deprecation spiral lately. I’m just — I’m not where I wanted to be, at forty-two.”

“You know why we’re even having this meeting today? It wasn’t just ‘cos I talked you up to Hec. They’ve _all_ heard good things about you. And they were interested in the idea of being managed by someone who doesn’t have a ton of people on their roster, who’ll be hands-on, and kind, but who knows the industry really well and can bust some heads when he needs to. Are you the biggest outfit on the West Coast? No, but everyone you’ve managed has been incredibly loyal to you, and better off for your involvement.”

"Ahh," Louis says, flapping his hand.

"It's true! Would I say it if it wasn't?"

"Guess not."

"I'm sorry, mate, I'm sorry you're feeling all this. I had no idea. I'm sorry you didn't feel like you could tell me."

"It's just embarrassing."

"It's not. You've done so much in your life. Don't be embarrassed. We're partners, we're a team. If there's anything I can do here, I want to know, alright? I want to hype you up. I want us both winning, whatever winning means to you."

“Hey,” Louis murmurs, “you’re a good husband. I tell you that enough?”

Liam smiles at him. “Like you haven’t talked me down from more than a couple ledges over the years.”

“Ha, that’s fair.”

Liam very slowly extends a fist and mock-socks him, knuckles lightly brushing his jaw. Louis laughs. “Get it together, killer, ‘cos the break’s about to be up, and they’re gonna want your notes.”

“Alright, alright.”

 

*

 

On their way home, Zayn texts Louis that Amir’s going to go trick-or-treating with them and then sleep over at their place tonight. Louis seems delighted to hear this.

“They must’ve patched things up,” he says. “Ha, this is cute…” He shows Liam a photo of a smiling Amir throwing up Westside next to the girls, who are in their costumes.

“Good, good. Great to hear.”

“And the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet, either,” Louis muses. “Weird, you’d think one of his classmates would’ve talked to the press by now.”

“Maybe they’ve got a code of silence at that school,” Liam suggests. “Omertà.”

Louis laughs.

The doorbell rings only a few minutes after they’ve been back. Liam makes his way to the foyer in confusion, trying to think of who would be paying them a late-afternoon visit. He opens the door to Calvin and Oli.

They chorus greetings and push past him into the house. Liam follows them back in and starts to shout for Louis, but Calvin shushes him.

“It’s a _surprise_ , daft boy,” he whispers.

“He’s gonna see you in five seconds, anyway —”

Louis rounds the corner just then. “Who — OI!”

The two of them descend on him and violently wrap him up in a very back-slappy hug. Louis giggles. “What the fuck! Since when are you lot in town?”

“Since thirty minutes ago,” Oli says. “We thought you could use a bit of banter in your life.”

“Yeah, you thought correctly,” Louis says, releasing them with a laugh. He gestures at the bags in Calvin’s hands. “What’s this?”

“Beer,” Calvin says, lifting one, “and weed.” He lifts the other.

“You know, I _have_ both of those.”

“We weren’t sure,” Oli says. “Didn’t know if Liam started keeping a dry house or something.”

“Why would I —” Liam stops himself, laughing, because he knows they’re just fucking with him. “You all wanna go in the den?” he says to Louis.

“Perfect,” Louis says, and they head off down the hall, talking animatedly.

Sunday comes down the stairs a moment later. “Do we have company?”

“Yeah, couple of Louis’ friends.”

“Thought maybe it was the cops,” she says drily.

“No, pretty much the opposite of cops. What’s up? Twins up to no good?”

“Nah, they just keep switching costumes with each other. They brought me in to give a final judgment on who should be what, then did the opposite of what I said.”

Liam laughs. “Typical.”

 

*

 

Liam peeks into the den a couple hours later: Louis is in the middle of telling what looks to be a very involved story, one that requires a lot of hand gestures and occasional interjections from Oli.

The three of them spot him and start shouting incoherently. Liam laughs and comes over to the coffee table, piling the empty beer cans littered atop it into a trash bag he’s got in his hand.

“Tommo, I just wanted to give you a heads up that Amir’s been connected to the car crash story,” he says. “TMZ broke it.”

Louis groans.

“But we’re in luck, it looks like it’s not gonna get that much coverage. There’s some big Kardashian story happening right now, someone cheated on someone or something.”

All three of them cheer.

“Never thought I’d say this, but thank fuck for Kardashians,” Louis says.

Liam moves closer to the couch so he can grab a far-away can, and Louis gives him a slap on the arse.

“Hi there,” Liam says amiably. Calvin and Oli chuckle. “Jesus, you all can drink, can’t you?”

“Join us,” Oli says, miming pulling him in by an invisible rope. Louis and Calvin echo their agreement until there’s an unbearable din coming from the couch.

“I’m alright, boys,” Liam says, laughing. “Pretend I’m not here, go back to your lad time.”

“What were we talking about?” Oli says.

“Oli,” Louis says, collapsing back onto the sofa cushion. “Oli. I wanted to say… I was sayin’... you were the best assistant I ever had. Everyone else? Shit, comparatively. Didn’t understand me at all.”

“Hey, have me back anytime you like,” Oli says, laughing. “That was good money.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got your family, now…”

“Eh, fuck ‘em.”

They all laugh. Liam tosses one last bottle and an empty crisp packet into the trash, then leans forward to press a kiss to Louis’ forehead; Louis smiles at him. “Have fun,” he says, heading back out.

Calvin and Oli chorus _awws_ and make kissy noises.

“Fuck off,” Louis exclaims.

 

*

 

Liam’s sitting at the island doing paperwork when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Louis very clumsily sneaking into the kitchen. He obligingly pretends he doesn’t notice him. Louis sneaks up behind him and wraps his arms around Liam’s waist.

“Hiiii,” he says, in a sweetly drunken way.

“Hi,” Liam says, chuckling.

Louis presses a kiss to the nape of his neck and pets at his chest. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Just some copyright stuff.”

“Oh, fun fun.”

“I think the boys are almost ready to go.” Liam checks his watch. “Fuck, it’s nearly seven already. You having fun?”

Louis presses his forehead to Liam’s back and nods. “I’m a bit twisted.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“And I wish we had some spare time tonight… ‘cos I’m in the mood to suck you off.”

“Really?” Liam says, turning in interest. “You never want to do that.”

“I know,” Louis purrs, and kisses him. “But I wanna lick you, I wanna make you feel good. Show you how much I love your dick.”

There’s a pleasant warm spasm in Liam’s gut. “You’re a dirty boy.”

“You know what they say about omegas with lots of tattoos…”

“What d’they say?”

“I dunno, that we‘re dirty?” He gropes Liam’s cock in his jeans. “I’ll get you later, I swear.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”

Louis grins at him and strokes his hair, then climbs up onto his lap.

“Oh, my bones,” Liam jokes. “You’re crushing me with those extra three pounds.”

Louis flicks him in the shoulder. “I said three to _fouuur_.”

“Oh my God, four? Watch out, everyone, Shamu’s jumped his tank.”

“Fuck off,” Louis says, laughing. “Don’t let Harold hear you joke about Shamu, he’ll slap you silly.”

Liam laughs, and they snog some more. When they stop to catch their breath, Louis rubs Liam’s thigh and whispers to him, “So we were just talking about me wingmanning for Oli, and it made me think of — I hadn’t thought about this in ages, but you remember, like right after me and El broke up, and you tried to wingman me? And you were so lousy, so off your game, it was bonkers…”

“In my defense, angel, I think I was falling in love with you at the time.”

Louis draws back; a sunny, drunken smile lights up his face. “Right,” he says. “I forgot. You wanker.”

Liam cups Louis’ face in his hands and strokes his cheeks. Louis gazes at him, his eyes soft with open devotion. Liam feels their twenty-four years of orbit like a fishhook in his gut.

Louis leans back in and starts sucking at a sensitive spot on Liam’s throat. “Yeah, deffo blowing you tonight,” he slurs, stroking Liam’s forearms. Liam laughs.

Behind them, there’s footfalls in the hallway. Before they can separate, the twins rush into the kitchen.

“Ew,” Max says, pulling a face. “Why are you guys always kissing?”

“We aren’t _always_ kissing!” Louis says, slinging an arm around Liam’s neck and wiping his mouth. Liam discreetly pinches him on the bum, and he jerks. “Um — you two ready to go? Wait, what the hell are you dressed as? Did you split up your costumes?”

“We couldn’t decide,” Patrick begins. “So…”

“... we’re both half Ninja Turtle and half Jedi,” Max finishes. “We made a new thing, we’re Ninja Turtle Jedis.”

“Boys, that makes no sense,” Louis says, laughing.

“It does so make sense!” Patrick retorts.

“Lovey, it doesn’t.”

“It does, it makes sense. You don’t get it.”

“No, you’re right,” Louis says tipsily. “I _don’t_ get it.”

Liam nuzzles into his ear and whispers, “Pick your battles.”

“Alright, alright,” Louis says. “What’s that in your hand, Max?”

“Um, I forgot to get a bunch of permission slips signed?” Max says. “Sorry. I just found them at the bottom of my backpack.”

He hands them each several crumpled pieces of paper. They do their best to straighten them out and skim the contents.

“This one’s for a field trip _tomorrow_ ,” Louis exclaims.

“I know, I forgot!”

“Christ, you’re just like your old man, aren’t you?” he says, chuckling. “Pen, Payno?”

Liam swivels slightly in his seat to grab the one he was doing paperwork with, holding Louis steady with an arm around his waist. “Max, this wouldn’t happen if you organized your papers as soon as you get them,” he says as he signs his way through his stack.

“But that takes _so_ long.”

“It takes five seconds! Paddy, d’you have any permission slips?”

“No,” Patrick says, “my teacher sends all ours over email.”

“That’s an unfair advantage,” Max complains.

Liam hands Louis the pen. “Alright,” he says. “Let’s go get some candy, boys.”

 

*

 

They all congregate in the foyer, including Calvin and Oli, who apparently were high enough to be enticed along to trick-or-treating by the prospect of candy.

“Wai’ wait,” Oli slurs, as they’re about to head out. “I’ve got one last beer here.”

“Bin it,” Louis says.

“No, someone can pound it.”

Calvin jerks his chin at Sunday. “Give it to young Miss Payne over here, she looks like she’s had a long day.”

Sunday laughs, looking surprised. “Sure.”

Oli half-extends his arm; Louis bats it down.

“Ah, no,” he says. “She’s not of age.”

“In England she could have one,” Calvin says.

“She couldn’t, actually, she’s seventeen,” Liam’s quick to counter.

Sunday rolls her eyes. “Da-ad, come on...”

Oli very slowly extends his arm again, his eyes twinkling. Liam snatches the beer out of his hand, fishes his keys from his pocket, and shotguns the entire thing as they all watch.

“Whoa, Dad,” Patrick says in a hushed tone.

He, Sunday and Max are all looking at him like they’ve never seen him before. Louis is grinning.

Liam wipes the foam off his lip and pretends like his throat and nostrils aren’t burning horribly. “There,” he says, tossing the empty to Calvin, who laughs.

“Ledge,” he says. “Y’know, Liam, I really like you so much more than I ever did Zayn.”

Liam flicks his eyes over at Louis, who looks amused.

“So you’ve mentioned,” Louis says. “Many times. While me and Zayn were still married, in fact.”

“Yeah, well, fuck that douchebag.”

“Alright, don’t start...”

Sunday is watching this exchange with round-eyed glee like it’s the US Open. Liam takes the twins by the shoulders and hustles them out the front door before Calvin can respond.

“Halloween!” he cheers.

“Halloween!” everyone choruses back, following him.

 

MALIBU, OCTOBER 31, 2034

Harry and Zayn fall about twenty feet behind the kids while they’re trick-or-treating, and hang there. Amir has the girls well in hand, and he’s carrying on a sweet conversation with them that they don’t want to interrupt.

”I like your costume,” Zayn murmurs.

Harry glances over at him. He’s smiling in the darkness.

“Thanks,” he says. “So not too obscure?”

“It’s extremely obscure,” Zayn says, laughing, “but I like it anyways.”

“I think everyone so far has thought I’m, um, what’s his name —”

“That bloke in _Pulp Fiction_? Travolta?”

“Exactly! But he didn’t have a guitar…” Harry holds up his empty guitar case for emphasis.

He’s supposed to be Antonio Banderas in _Desperado_ , because his hair’s the perfect length right now, and he had a shirt that worked.

“They’re just uncultured,” Zayn says. “Either way, you look fit.”

“Fit enough to fuck?” Harry says, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.

Zayn sighs. “I told you, it might take a few more days for this meds switch to kick in.”

“But d’you want to try, tonight?”

“I kind of just want to wait for it to happen naturally. I mean…” He drops his voice. “It’s — you realize it’s embarrassin’ for me when we’re sitting there trying to make it happen, and I can tell you’re getting frustrated?”

“I don’t mean to get frustrated,” Harry whispers. “I just want to make you feel good, it’s killing me that I can’t.”

“Don’t worry about it, alright?”

They reach another house and stop at the end of the driveway. The girls reach their hands up for Amir’s so they don’t get lost in the crowd of kids that are walking up to the door, and he takes them both gallantly.

“He’s sweet with them,” Harry says, smiling.

“He is, yeah.”

“I’m glad you two worked things out.”

Zayn just nods.

He hadn’t given Harry any specific details, but when he and Amir got back from the bay, they both seemed altered in some way and looked like they’d been crying. They all went out to eat pre-trick-or-treating so the girls wouldn’t be as tempted to eat ten pounds of candy, and throughout dinner Zayn and his only son were quiet, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable quiet. More of a thoughtful one.

 

*

 

Zayn can't sleep that night. It’s an old problem that’s resurfaced lately: he can’t drift off, or he wakes in the middle of the night feeling certain that something is wrong.

Tonight he lies there for a while, listening to Harry breathe next to him. After a half hour or so, he sits up.

“Zayn?” Harry says in a voice thick with sleep.

Zayn leans over and presses a kiss to his tattooed bicep. “Just gonna go downstairs for a bit.”

Harry reaches blindly out behind himself.

Zayn takes his hand and brings it to his mouth, kissing his knuckles. “What’s up?”

“Dunno,” Harry says hoarsely. “I had a bad dream.”

“What ‘appened?”

He rolls over, blinking in the darkness. “You left me...”

Zayn sighs. “That’s never gonna happen, alright?”

“I know.”

Zayn leans over and kisses him. Harry reaches up and cups his face with needy fingers.

“I love you,” he says in a ghostly whisper against Zayn’s lips.

Zayn nuzzles into his throat, inhaling the smell of his cologne. “I love you too.”

 

*

 

Downstairs, he finds Amir in one of their cozier sitting rooms. He’s watching TV in the dark, cuddled on the couch under a few blankets. Zayn can see from the blue light flickering onto his face that his cheek is beginning to bruise.

“Want company?” he says from the doorway.

“Alright,” Amir says, and lifts up the blanket.

Zayn comes over and settles in next to him. “You couldn’t sleep either?”

He shrugs. “Been going to bed kinda late lately.”

“How late?”

“Like four.”

Zayn chuckles. “Four is _kinda_ late? What’re you watching?”

“Frasier.”

“Frasier?”

“Yeah… me and Mia used to stay up and watch it when we were with you for the weekend.”

Zayn studies him. “You miss her?”

Amir shrugs. “It’s weird not having her around.”

He doesn’t seem to want to elaborate at all, so they watch in companionable silence for a while.

“What accent is that supposed to be?” Zayn says when the English housekeeper comes back on screen. “It’s all over the place.”

“Manchester or something.”

“That’s supposed to be a Manc? No way... Terrible.”

“You and Dad are so anal about the accent thing.”

“‘S’just lazy, is all.”

Amir mimes picking up an old-timey landline phone, then puts on a low, sleepy voice. “Hullo, is this the nineties? Yeah, it’s Zayn Malik. You really fooked up that Manchester accent. I’m traveling back in time to kick your ass, wait there.”

Zayn laughs hard at this. “Little wanker,” he says fondly.

 

*

 

Liam’s fully in bed when Louis finally gets home around two, stomping around like he does when he’s drunk. He comes upstairs and crawls onto the bed, glazed in the eyes and approaching Liam with slow, intentional movements, like he’s the shark in _Jaws_.

“Hi,” Liam says. “You see your boys off?”

“Yeah, they got a hotel.” Louis peels the sheet and duvet back, then starts trying to yank Liam’s boxers off his hips. “Hang out again tomorrow…”

“Where’d you lot go?”

“Out drinkin’ and billiards, an’ then, uh… tattoo place…”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Liam looks him over. “I don’t see anything new.”

Louis grins fiendishly at him and tugs his joggers down off his arse, exposing the left cheek, which has two tiny lowercase letters tattooed on it, angry red and crusted with fresh blood: _lp_.

Liam’s heart skips a beat. “You did not.”

“I did,” Louis sings, “I did I did I did. You like it?”

“‘Course I do," he says with a laugh, "but you’re bonkers... and I can’t believe anyone tattooed you when you’re this off your face.”

“Kevin did it for me, he lo-oves me.”

“Good old Kevin.” Liam reaches down and runs his thumb over the tattoo.

Louis lets out a soft noise, half-pained and half-pleased. “You do like it, though?” he says, his blearily drunken eyes roving Liam’s face.

“I love it, sunshine, thank you."

"Yeah, happy birthday."

"Bit late, but I'll take it."

Louis starts pawing at his boxers again. 

“Y’know," Liam says, "you can just blow me in the morning...”

“Noo... I wanna — why’re these so ‘ard to — the fuck —“

Liam shimmies them down off himself.

Louis stares blankly at his cock. “You’re so soft.”

He laughs. “I’ve been lying here texting Andy, you want me to be hard from that?”

“No, ‘s’alright, I got it.”

Louis is way too drunk for this; he starts giving him an artless, toothy blowjob, like he’s eating a Fudgsicle. Liam tries to enjoy it, but after about a minute of pretending not to wince, he says, “D’you maybe just wanna kiss while you jerk me off?”

Louis looks up, his fringe flopping. “Sure,” he says, and settles down next to Liam.

They lie there companionably for a while as Louis’ fingers work, snogging each other. Liam strokes the bristly underside of Louis’ jaw with gentle motions of his knuckles, and Louis sucks at his bottom lip. He tastes pleasantly of beer and weed.

“I’m gonna blow you tomorrow,” he slurs. “I promise.”

Liam gives him a squeeze on his arse and presses a kiss to his cheekbone. He reaches down and starts moving his hand with Louis’; with his added help, he comes after a few minutes, sighing against Louis’ mouth.

“Good, took care of you,” Louis slurs. He lays down next to Liam, then, closing his eyes.

“Is that what all this is about?” Liam whispers back. “You wanna take care of me?”

Louis nods.

“You‘re fine on that front.”

“Alright,” Louis says, sounding pleased.

"I do love the tat, though."

"'S'like the type of record. Your initials. I never realized 'til now, 's'that dumb?" Louis opens his eyes a crack. "Made me think... we should do a whole album together... just us two..."

"Hey, I'd absolutely love that. I always thought we'd do that someday."

"'Kay. Put a pin in it, Payno."

Liam strokes his hair. "It's pinned."

After a moment of lazy half-cuddling, he gets up and heads into the bathroom to wipe himself down. When he gets back, Louis has fallen asleep, face-down and with his joggers still mostly on.

 

CALABASAS, NOVEMBER 1, 2034

Zayn drops Amir off early the next morning. It’s a nice day, sort of strange and hazy, as misty as it can get in Southern California.

“Pick you back up on Thursday?” Zayn says as he gets out.

“Yeah,” Amir says, perching his sunglasses on his head. “Thursday.”

He has an appointment with a therapist on Friday. It’s someone Zayn’s own therapist recommended, someone who’s supposed to be good with teenagers. He can’t imagine she’ll say anything that he’s not going to want to roll his eyes at, but he promised he’d go.

“Alright. See you then,” Zayn says.

“Bye, Dad.”

As Amir approaches the house, he realizes there’s another car in the driveway. Evan’s car.

He walks around the side of it. Evan is leaning on the hood, vaping.

“Hey,” he says when he spots Amir, and sticks the Juul back in his shirt pocket. “Been waiting for you for a while.”

“Yeah, I was at my other dad’s, sorry.”

“You haven’t been answering your texts,” he says.

Amir holds up his bare wrists, _Wonder Woman_ -style this time. “Been incognito since the other night.”

Evan gives him a rueful smile. “Right. Wait, is your face bruised?”

“Just a little.” Amir studies him. “Yours isn’t.”

“Airbag. Jason got the worst of it, ‘cos his face smashed off the steering wheel. He’s got a concussion, and he’s missing a tooth, he looks like a fucking jack o’lantern.”

As angry as he is at Jason, Amir feels a pang at hearing this. “Holy shit.”

“I know.”

“So what's going on with you guys? How much trouble are you in?”

“Oh, man,” Evan says, dropping his gaze. He scratches the back of his neck. “I mean, it could be worse, I guess.”

Amir sits next to him on the hood, studying his face in profile. He’s glowing in the morning sun, blonde and boyish.

“For starters, Jason’s on house arrest,” Evan says, glancing back up at him.

“Whoa, no shit?”

“Yeah. No electronics, nothing. I only found out ‘cos I went over there. His dad is furious, apparently he’s been going between yelling at Jason and calling every contact he has to try and get him off.”

“When’s he on house arrest ‘til?”

“Until he goes to trial, I think.”

“How’s it look?”

Evan shrugs. “Not great, but he said he’ll probably get off with community service and a suspended sentence.”

“What about you?”

“It’s all over already. I got community service. Two hundred hours, but I’m not going to trial. My parents’ lawyers made a deal when I got arraigned.”

“Wait, you plead guilty?”

“Yeah. But it’s not even gonna stay on my record after five years.”

“What about colleges, though?”

“Guess we’ll see.”

Amir’s quiet for a moment. “Why’d you have coke on you?”

He shakes his head. “It was so stupid. Kai gave it to me to hold, me and him were gonna do coke and go to a house show next week. I wasn’t even that into it. I was gonna invite you along, actually… I just wasn’t sure how you were feeling about that kind of thing after you had that bad trip.”

“Shit...”

“Stupid,” Evan repeats. “So dumb.”

They’re quiet for a while.

“It doesn’t seem fair,” Amir says. “Jason’s the one who _really_ fucked up. Like, hurt other people fucked up.”

“I know, man.”

“He almost killed us.”

“Oh, I know,” Evan says with a snort. “Trust me. I actually went over to his place to yell at him. He was so pathetic, though, I couldn’t bring myself to. But, um.” He clears his throat. “I’ll forgive him eventually, I guess, if he’s like, actually sorry about it.”

“That’s pretty much how I feel,” Amir says. He can’t imagine just cutting Jason out of his life after eleven years.

Evan glances sideways at him. “I've actually been worried about you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, since I hadn’t heard from you. I ended up texting Louis yesterday. He told me you were fine, you just wanted to be left alone.”

“I guess I worried about you too. ‘Specially yesterday, when you guys’s mugshots were everywhere…”

“That was so fucking awkward,” Evan says. “My grandma called me crying. My _grandma_.”

“Shit. Have you been to school at all? Sunday said everyone’s talking about it.”

“Nah, I like, took the week off. Didn’t feel up to it.”

“I get that.”

They’re quiet for a while.

“Hey,” Amir says, “you remember when we were like, fourteen, and my dad and Liam had that huge New Years’ party, and Jason and Mia stole those bottles of Dom, and we snuck into the pool house and drank with her soccer team?”

“Oh, shit, yeah,” Evan says, grinning.

“Me and her were so fucking hungover the next day, and we had to pretend like we weren’t… I threw up in the shower.”

“Gretchen Kendall took her top off for truth or dare,” Evan says. “I remember that. And then she made Jason show us his balls.”

Amir laughs. “I miss doing shit like that. It felt, like, more innocent. I dunno.”

Evan fidgets like he’s nervous, looking down at his hands. “Um,” he says. “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“This seems like as good a time as any… I actually wanted to, like, tell you something.”

“What?”

He keeps looking down. “I just wanted to get it out there...”

Amir’s heart starts thumping. “What?” he repeats.

“I like you,” Evan says. His voice is hushed, like he’s talking in church. “I have for a while now. I’m sorry, I know we’re bros, but...”

Amir’s mouth has gotten very dry. He can’t seem to get his tongue to form a word, even a noise.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Evan says, like he read his mind. “I just wanted you to know. I know you always think people only like you ‘cos of how you look, or ‘cos your parents are famous, but, uh. That’s not how I feel.”

“Wait,” Amir says, standing up. “Wait. I just, like —“

“Sorry,” Evan says, looking guilty. “Don’t feel like you have to say anything right away, or even that you have to say anything. We can forget it if you want. I just got this feeling lately, sometimes, like maybe you liked me too. I wasn’t sure. But…”

Amir stares at him for a few beats, then turns and heads toward the house. His heart is going even faster now, if anything, and his thoughts are a tangled jumble.

Behind him, he hears Evan opening his car door.

“Hold on,” Amir says, and turns around.

Evan stops and looks up, his hair gleaming in the sun.

Amir walks back to him, right up to him. He squints as he looks into his eyes, his heart fluttering, then rises onto his tiptoes to press a kiss to Evan’s cheek.

Evan lets out a breathless little laugh. “For real?” he says.

Amir slips away from him, grinning, and walks away again. “Don’t make a huge deal out of it, alright?”

“Wait, Amir…”

“Just be cool for once in your life.”

Evan laughs harder. “Asshole,” he says over his shoulder as he gets into his car, but he says it like it’s a good thing.

Amir, still smiling, gives him the finger.

 

*

 

The house is quiet. Everyone must be at school. He finds Liam in the breakfast nook, having a cup of coffee.

“Hey,” he says to Amir.

“Hey. Where’s my dad?”

“Upstairs,” Liam says. “He’s a bit hungover.”

Amir laughs. “Got it. Any coffee left?”

“Yeah, in the pot.”

He pours himself a cup and sits across from Liam, looking out into the lush backyard, letting himself get lost in his thoughts.

“You look happy,” Liam says, smiling at him.

Amir’s cheeks heat up. “Maybe.”

“Anything you feel like sharing?”

“Not really.”

“Alright.”

“Hey… can I ask you something?”

Liam raises his eyebrows, but nods.

“It’s about when you first got with my dad…”

“Oh,” Liam says, looking uncomfortable.

“Don’t worry,” Amir says, “it’s not too awkward.”

He laughs. “Okay.”

“Just, like… did you not feel like it was a lot of drama? Like, did the drama part of it ever bother you?”

Liam huffs out a breath, and his gaze breaks away, cutting over Amir’s shoulder. “No,” he says, simply. “I knew your dad really well, and I was really involved in what he was going through.”

“So that made the drama okay?”

“Ah, what I mean is, I reckon I didn’t think of it as _drama_. It was just stuff my best friend was going through.”

“Stuff like being pregnant with someone else’s baby,” Amir says.

Liam exhales heavily. “Yeah.”

“I just, like… I get why he dated you, he was confused and lonely and shit. I guess I’m wondering why _you_ were into it.”

He chokes on a laugh and sets his coffee down. “Thanks, thank you.”

“C’mon, you know what I mean.”

“I wouldn’t say we ‘dated’, even. We were together really briefly. And I always supported the idea of him making things work with your dad.”

“But you got with him anyway? Even though he’d just had a breakup, and he had all that crazy shit going on?”

“I’ve always cared for your dad very much, Amir. I wanted to be there for him.”

“And that’s it?”

“I’m not gonna lie and say I didn’t have reservations…”

“‘Cos he was pregnant with my dad’s baby,” Amir supplies.

(He knows it's mean to tweak Liam about this, but he loves how flustered his normally unflappable stepdad when he brings it up. Neither he nor Mia knew about Louis and Liam's little interlude until Mia was in sixth grade and one of her friends snidely commented that her dad and stepdad were cheaters. Mia kicked her in the shin and told her to shut up, but she Googled about the rumor when she got home, and screamed at Amir to come join her. They stood there listening to _Find Out_ together and sharing a horrified look. They asked Louis when he got home that night; he sighed, sat down with them, and gave them an abridged and somewhat censored account of the events of 2015. He and Liam didn’t “fall into bed,” they “became special friends.” “Special like sex?” Mia supplied. “You guys had sex?” Louis, looking like he wanted to die, said, “Yeah.”

From then on, it was never a source of embarrassment, only an amusing anecdote they could use to undermine Liam's authority when he got too fatherly for their taste.)

“But,” Liam steamrolls valiantly ahead, ignoring him, “when you care about someone, and have that kind of history with them, you do your best to stick with them through the difficult things. We take care of each other, me and your dad, it’s very equal… we both have our own crazy shit. And everyone does. In a good partnership, you trade off on being the helper.”

This reassures Amir. He keeps flashing back to the surprised look on Evan’s face when he kissed his cheek, and thinking of how uncomplicated Evan is, how ridiculously complicated he feels in comparison.

“So, what’s up?” Liam says. “Something on your mind?”

“Nah,” Amir says. “I was just curious.”

“You know, you can talk to me, if you want.”

“I know. But I’m good.”

 

*

 

Liam brings Louis up a bowl of cereal around eleven. He’s sitting up in bed, and there’s a wide hologram displaying up from his watch, colorful shadows flickering over his face. He must be watching a video.

Liam gets into bed next to him and lays back against the pillows. It’s a video of Amir and Mia as little kids. They’re on a leafy street, somewhere in London; Liam can tell from the fire hydrants and the bins.

It was a rainy day, and there are puddles all over the sidewalk. Mia, who can’t be older than three, is stomping into every single one. She ends up splashing Amir, who’s toddling after her in his little yellow slicker and rain hat.

He seems shocked, and then starts bawling. Zayn — impossibly young and handsome, not a single gray in his dark hair yet — steps into frame and scoops him up. “I got you,” he murmurs to him, “you’re fine.”

But Amir isn’t soothed. There’s flashes of light and color as Louis gives the phone to Zayn and takes their son. And then Zayn turns the camera on Louis, cradling Amir to his shoulder and reassuring him.

“He’s a stupid _baby_ ,” Mia says.

“You were a baby too, not too long ago,” Louis reminds her.

Zayn chuckles. The video ends.

Liam looks over at Louis, who heaves a wistful sigh.

“His tiny little raincoat,” he says.

“Aww, Tommo…”

“Feels like it was just yesterday, is all.”

Liam navigates through his own watch and shows Louis a photo he’s kept in a special folder in his iCloud for at least a decade — him dozing on a couch, Sunday a tiny bundle resting on his chest. She was only about a week old.

Louis makes a soft sound and nuzzles up against Liam’s shoulder. “I remember that one. Look how young you were...”

“I know,” Liam murmurs. “The fuck did I know about babies? And look at her now. All grown up, wants to run off and leave me. My little girl.” His chest tightens as he says it. “Crazy.”

“But it’s ‘cos you did a good job with her, you know? She’s got a good head on her shoulders, Sunday. She knows what she’s about. She’ll do fine.”

“Thanks, love. I hope so. And you did a good job with her, too.”

Louis nudges him. “You know what we’ve gotta do with the twins… keep ‘em in a dark cabinet and blow cigarette smoke on ‘em all day, so they can’t get any bigger. Like bonsai trees.”

Liam laughs. “Give ‘em coffee with every meal.”

“‘Sactly.”

“Speaking of...” Liam lifts his wrist and swipes through the same secret folder until he gets to a photo of Louis, lying sleepy-eyed in a recliner in a spit-up stained hoodie, one twin cradled in each of his tattooed arms.

Louis beams at this. “God, they were tiny when we brought ‘em home, weren’t they?”

“Yeah,” Liam murmurs. “Little preemie bubs.”

“I sort of miss that. Don’t miss the not sleeping at all bit, but I miss ‘em tiny.”

Liam pats Louis on the stomach. “Wanna make another? Just one more?”

Louis barks out a laugh. “I’ve had me tubes tied!”

“They can reverse it…”

“Factory’s closed, love. Boarded up, condemned, bulldozed, turned into council flats.”

“They turned your uterus into council flats?”

“They did,” Louis confirms. “Put up a little basketball court and everything.”

Liam smiles at him. “You’re silly.”

“I know.”

 

CALABASAS, NOVEMBER 4, 2034

The day Niall is due to come by, Louis wakes up with stabbing pains in his lower back that don’t ebb until he’s taken a Flexeril and two Percocets. This all makes him completely incompetent to look after the twins, and he doesn’t want Liam to miss a Saturday hangout he’s got planned with a ton of his friends, so they enlist an aggrieved Sunday to babysit.

Louis lies on the big leather couch in the den with the door open, wincing as he listens to the boys gambol around rambunctiously coupled with her increasingly strident pleas for silence.

“Sunday, love?” he calls to her when she walks by. “Maybe, like, take ‘em to the park or something? It’s the weekend, some of their friends ought to be over there.”

She pokes her in the doorway. “Why don’t you call the nanny and have her take them?”

“I don’t like to use her unless we really need to. Let’s just be a normal family, yeah? You can watch them a few hours, it won’t kill you.”

Sunday lets out a sigh. “Okay, we’ll go to the park —”

They’re interrupted by their watches chiming as the front door opens. From down the hall, Niall shouts, “Boys! Where the hell ya at!”

“In the den,” Sunday yells.

“Why’s no one comin’ to greet me?” he calls. “America beat the last of your good etiquette out of you?”

“Neeeee-il, I can’t walk,” Louis calls back pitifully.

A few moments later, Niall strides into view, clapping Sunday on the shoulder. He looks pleasantly weatherbeaten, and hasn’t taken his aviators off yet. “Hey there,” he says to both of them. “What was that, Tommo?”

“Said I can’t walk. I’m an invalid today.”

“Ohh, the old back acting up?”

“Yeah. Well, I mean, I took some shit, I’m alright, just trying not to test me luck.”

“That’s a shame, I was thinkin’ we could stop by Mims’ practice today,” Niall says, grinning. “Get in on a scrimmage. She did tell me I’ve got a standing invitation.”

Louis laughs. “I hate to break it to you, lad, but we’re old men now. Those girls would murder us without breakin’ a sweat, and Mims would think it was hilarious, which is why she said that.”

“Hey, it’s a pleasure to be murdered by the football stars of tomorrow.”

“I’m gonna head out,” Sunday says. “Take the maniac boys to the park.”

“Alright, love, thank you,” Louis says. “Just let ‘em wear themselves out on the monkey bars or whatever, and they’ll quiet down.”

Niall waves her goodbye and comes over to the couch, settling next to Louis. “When do we expect the other three?”

“Uhh… Liam said he’d be back around one, I think Harry and Zayn are coming by a little after that.”

“So we’ve got a bit of Niall and Louis time?”

“We do! How are ya?”

“Great,” Niall says cheerfully. “Had a shit flight, but other’n that, y’know. Well, we’ve been in touch, haven’t we? Winnie’s good, Jamie’s good…”

“He showing any interest in the guitar yet?”

“A bit,” Niall says with a chuckle. “Mostly he’s just still really into rugby. So we’ll see. But, hey, tell me what’s goin’ on with your boy.”

“Amir? He’s alright. Went to see that therapist yesterday.”

“What’s her verdict?”

“She doesn’t think it's bipolar, which is a big fuckin’ relief. Or at least, like — if he has it, what’s been going on isn’t it. Like, he’s not symptomatic.”

“Good, good,” Niall says, nodding.

Louis shifts on the pillow he’s got stuffed under his back. “She said she thinks he’s just anxious and depressed, and having a bit of an identity crisis. She says this is common for kids who are like him, y’know, gifted. Like, Mims actually had an easier time of it, becoming independent and things like that, ‘cos school’s always been a struggle for her — plus she learned how to lose by doin’ sports. Same with Sunday. Amir’s just really unfamiliar with, like, anticlimax, disappointment, failure, all that. So he’s acting out as a way to like, have control over what’s going on.”

“That makes a lot o’ sense,” Niall says.

“And he misses Mia a lot, apparently,” Louis says.

Niall gives him his twinkly-eyed, sweet smile. “She’s easy to miss,” he says.

“She is,” Louis murmurs. He pats Niall on the thigh. “Speaking of missable people… feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“I know! I’m thinking about moving us back to LA, honestly, if I can convince Winnie.”

“You should! Please, seriously.”

“We’ll see. I mean, it’d make things easier on me music-wise — I’d like to record a bit more on me own, after this next band joint. As much as I like doing the married duo thing, y’know, we’re both such perfectionists.” He laughs. “Got a bit at each other’s throats, last single we did.”

“Noo, seriously?”

“Nothin’ too bad, just sniping.”

“Well, I wanna hear the mature solo Niall sound,” Louis says, giving him a lazy Percocet-induced grin. “I want you to go full Dylan.”

“Ha, we’ll see.”

“Y’know, I wanted to move back to England after the divorce,” Louis says, “but Zayn prefers it here, so I didn’t want to make him move just to see the kids, and then, y’know, I got with Payno, and Cecilia’s here, and for a while she was tryin’ to be more involved with Sunday, so we stayed, and then Zayn hooked up with Harry, and got tied to LA —"

“Wait wait,” Niall says, “sorry, that reminds me, what t’ fuck is going on with Harry and this movie?”

“Oh,” Louis says, laughing, “that’s a doozy. So a week or so back, Harry gives me a ring, says he wants to come have a private chat with me.”

“Odd,” Niall says, and leans back against the cushions like he’s settling in for some serious entertainment.

 

*

 

Liam comes back a little sunburned and with axle grease on his hands, but in good spirits. He finds them in the den, and he and Niall bear hug.

“You still laid up?” he says to Louis when they separate.

“I ‘ad another Percocet, actually,” Louis says dreamily. “So I’m feeling gooood, Daddio.”

Liam laughs.

“He’s fucked,” Niall mouths.

“I am not!” Louis retorts.

“Eh, you’re a _little_ fucked, Tommo.”

“'S'on your hands?” Louis says to Liam.

Liam glances down at them. “Grant got a flat, I had to change his tire.”

“Oo-ooh, look at me husband, ‘e’s so handy…”

“But sensitive, too,” Niall intones, like he’s doing a voice-over for a cologne commercial.

Louis smiles. “He’s a Renaissance man.”

“I bring the bacon home and I fry it up in a pan,” Liam jokes, wiping his hands on the arse of his jeans.

Their watches chime that Sunday has just returned home. Half a minute later, the boys run into the den.

“Niall!” they shout, and run for him.

Niall, despite being forty-one and fresh off a recent knee surgery, rolls around on the carpet with them like they’re in the WWE while Liam and Louis watch in amusement.

When they’ve finally tired poor Niall out, the boys redirect their attention.

“Dad, does your back still hurt?” Max says, glancing up at him.

“Only a little,” Louis says.

“Can I try to fix it?” Patrick says.

He smiles at him. “Depends, what are you gonna do?”

“Rub it.”

“Alright,” he says, rolling over onto his front. “Sure, give it a go.”

Patrick comes over and starts gently patting his lumbar spine with both hands.

“What’re you doin’ t’ me,” Louis mumbles into his pillow.

“Patting you,” he chirps. “‘Cos I’m Patrick. Get it?”

Louis, stoned enough to find this hilarious, wheezes with laughter before clumsily reaching up for Patrick’s head to tousle his hair. “You’re silly.”

He rolls back onto his side, and Patrick takes his forearm in his hands, carefully running his fingers over Louis’ tattoos. He’s always been fascinated by them, especially the compass. When he was very little he used to sit in the crook of Louis’ arm and stare.

Louis lies there in sleepy comfort, watching him.

“How much did they hurt?” Patrick says.

“They weren’t that bad,” Louis murmurs. “This one hurt worst…” He taps his collarbone. “Why, you want a tattoo, sonny boy?”

“Maybe.”

“Yeah? What d’you wanna get?”

Patrick shrugs.

“Well, you’ve got a while to decide,” Louis says with a smile.

“Yeah.”

Louis tickles his ribs. Patrick laughs, ducking away from him, and goes off to harass Max.

“Shouldn’t Zayn and Harry be here already?” Liam says, glancing at his watch.

“You have to do the math for each of ‘em when they’re together,” Louis says. “Twenty minutes late for Zayn plus ten minutes early for Harry. That comes out to ten minutes late, so give ‘em another two.”

“They should give you a MacArthur grant for that, Tommo,” Niall says from the floor.

“I know, right?”

“Is Amir coming with them?” Max says, struggling to fight off Patrick, who’s trying to pants him.

“Nah, I think he’s gonna stay behind and look after the girls,” Liam says.

“Aww,” Patrick complains. His disappointment gives Max a window to escape from him, going over to sit on Niall’s back like he’s a chaise. “We want to play 2K with him.”

“He’ll be back Sunday,” Louis says.

“Dad, I’m Patrick, not Sunday,” he says, grinning cheekily.

Niall gets a good chuckle out of this.

“I blame you for originating that joke,” Louis says to Liam, who smiles at him.

Their watches chime: it’s Zayn and Harry. Louis checks the time. “What’d I tell you? Ten minutes late on the dot.”

“Yo,” Zayn shouts from the foyer.

“Den,” Niall yells back, rolling out from under a giggling Max and hoisting him to his feet, swinging him around. 

They come down the hall and pop into the now somewhat crowded room; Harry gives Niall a hug while Zayn lingers off to the side, hands in his pockets, looking sort of tired. Harry, conversely, is dewier than usual today, like he’s back in his about-to-shoot-a-movie skincare regimen.

“Hey,” Louis says to Zayn.

“Hey.” He comes over to the couch and nudges his feet. “Budge up.”

Louis does; he sits down.

The twins, bored with the the adult patter now going on between Niall, Liam and Harry, start idly wrestling each other again.

“Max, no hitting,” Liam says distractedly, only looking at them with his peripheral vision.

“Dad!” Max cries in offense, while a fiendishly grinning Patrick sits on his chest and slaps him on the cheeks. “Patrick’s the one that’s hitting!”

Liam does a double take. “Oh, sorry. Patrick, cut it out. Go amuse yourselves nonviolently, or you’re gonna be practicing times tables all afternoon.”

“Noo,” they cry in unison, scrambling to their feet and bolting out of the room.

“How’s sonny?” Louis says to Zayn.

“Good,” he says. “We had a couple paps lurking, but other than that, it’s been quiet.”

Niall claps his hands together, and they both look up. “Beers?” he says.

“I mean, I’m on painkillers, and Zayn’s an alcoholic,” Louis says.

Harry chuckles at this.

“Shit,” Niall says. “Right. That.”

“How d’you forget that as often as you do?” Zayn says.

“I don’t, I’m Irish, it’s just habit t’ offer. Beers for the rest of us, then.”

Harry watches Niall go. “So,” he says, once he’s out of earshot, “I’ve got something that I wanted to run by you, Liam.”

Liam looks at him with polite interest, but Louis notices he folds his arms across his chest. “Yeah.”

“I have…” Harry pauses and holds up a flash drive. “A copy of my final chemistry test with Ceci. And I want to give it to you —“

“Oh, _God_ ,” Liam exclaims. “Please, mate, no. It’s alright. You’ve got my blessing. Just go on.”

“But, no, look, I want to give it to you, and I want you to give me the final word on if you can’t stomach it, ‘cos I know me just saying it is different than the actual experience of having to see it.”

“Well, I’m not gonna go see that film, I can tell you that much,” Liam says, laughing sort of nervously.

Louis flicks his eyes over to Zayn, who glances at him and lifts his eyebrows.

“ _Mess_ ,” Louis mouths, and Zayn stifles a laugh.

“No, I know,” Harry says, “but there’s gonna be trailers —”

“What, is this a _Fifty Shades_ type thing?” Liam says with a bit of bass in his voice. “Am I missing something here? You gonna fuck her in the trailer?”

Niall’s eyes widen.

“Liam!” Harry exclaims. “See, this is exactly what I didn’t want!”

Louis is sort of amazed. He can’t remember the last time he saw Liam genuinely annoyed with Harry. Zayn looks as stunned as Louis feels.

“Pop it in,” Liam says, gesturing to the massive TV on the wall. “Let’s — y’know, put it up, and I’ll let you know what I think.”

He comes over and sits down by Louis’ head, so Louis is flanked on either side by husbands past and present.

“I meant for you to watch later, mate,” Harry says, looking awkward as he hovers, the last one standing. “Alone, in private…”

“Nah, why not?” Liam says. “Millions of people are gonna watch this, so why not us five?”

There’s a moment of silence as they stare each other down.

Harry clears his throat and strides to the TV, sticking the USB in. Then he comes over and sits on the other wing of the sectional, separate from the rest of them, and starts fiddling with the remote.

Zayn seems to register for the first time that Louis is prone. “You okay?” he says to him. “Back?”

“Yeah, just resting, ‘s’been acting up today.”

Harry looks up from the remote. “Louis, explain to me again why you won’t just let me refer you to my osteopath?”

“‘Cos I’ve got a perfectly fine doctor I’m happy with, with a medical degree,” Louis says. “Anyway, the issue’s with me pelvis, it just radiates up into me back.”

“Well, he could help with that…”

“I’m good, I promise.”

“Stubborn,” Harry murmurs, shaking his head, then returns to working on pulling the video up.

Liam’s leg is jumping. Louis reaches a hand out to still it, and Liam laces their fingers together.

Harry gets the TV on the right setting, and they see a thumbnail of the video, the lone item in a folder titled STYLES-MARINO CT 10-3-34 NOT FOR RELEASE.

Louis finds himself wanting a cigarette.

“I don’t _have_ to show this,” Harry says, giving Liam one of his intent, wide-eyed Bambi looks.

“Just play it,” Liam says. “This buildup is worse than the actual thing’s gonna be, I’m sure.”

Harry hits play, and the screen fills with him.

He’s sitting on a bed in the middle of a set, cross-legged, waiting. A stylist dips into view to adjust his hair, then retreats. Milling around the edges of the screen are cameramen, best boys, ADs, et cetera.

Ceci steps into view, and Louis realizes he hasn’t seen her in a while. She’s had a lot of very tasteful work done; she doesn’t look a day older than thirty-five, and her body is as stunning as ever.

Harry wipes his palms on the thighs of his jeans and glances off-screen; someone is talking to him, but they aren’t mic'd, so it’s muffled.

“Alright,” he says. “That works.”

Ceci approaches and kneels on the bed next to him. The camera moves around the bed until it’s got a lengthwise view. Dozens of people are gathered in the background behind the other cameras, watching.

Harry lays back against the sheets.

Ceci kneels on either side of his waist. She gathers her hair up and moves it to one side of her neck, then bends down over him so it makes a curtain.

They kiss, deeply. It looks real. Except for when they abruptly part, both looking up at the muffle-voiced director with similar furrowed brows, then return to kissing so smoothly it looks robotic.

Ceci rolls her hips against Harry, and Harry pushes his hand into her hair. They actually do have really good chemistry.

Louis glances at Zayn, who seems relatively unconcerned, but is looking at his fingernails instead of the television.

Niall walks into the room, then, beers in his hands. They all tear their gazes from the screen and glance over at him in sheepish surprise; he takes one look at their stricken faces and then snaps his eyes to the TV. His mouth parts in horror.

“Jesus Mary and Joseph… t’ fuck is wrong with you four?” he says with a laugh. “I swear you’re all sick in the head or something.”

“It’s not what it looks like,” Harry quickly says.

“It looks like you’re torturing Liam,” Niall says.

Liam clears his throat. “You can turn it off, I’ve seen enough.”

Harry immediately obliges him.

Louis struggles into a sitting position and reaches out for Liam’s shoulder, squeezing it. Niall comes over and takes a rather tentative seat next to Harry.

“That was nasty, I’m not gonna lie,” Zayn says.

Harry’s nostrils flare almost imperceptibly. “You never like it when I’ve got to do a love scene,” he says.

“But this is like, _incest-y_.”

Niall silently hands Harry a beer, and then a second one, which Harry passes over to a stone-faced Liam.

“Well, this meeting’s off to a great start,” Louis chirps.

“It’s fine, Harry,” Liam says, his voice soft. “Really, go ahead, make the movie.”

Harry looks crestfallen. “But —“

“We’ve been divorced almost fifteen years, I don’t care.”

“But she’s your kid’s mum, I get if it feels too weird —“

“It’s fine!”

“It doesn’t seem fine!” Harry cracks his beer open.

Liam is still clutching his own, his fingers wrapped around the cold can like it’s a grenade he’s keeping the pin in. “I’m just a bit old-fashioned sometimes. I don’t mean to be. I can’t help it.” He glances at Louis. “I’m sorry, this isn’t — you know what I mean by all this, right?”

“Oh, ‘course, love,” Louis says. He isn’t threatened at all by Liam’s trepidation. Liam didn’t even flinch when Ceci got remarried — he wrote her a very nice card and genuinely seemed to wish her nothing but the best. But this is different, somehow.

“I’m sorry,” Liam says to no one in particular. “I’m sorry, I really didn’t want this to bother me. I don’t know why it is.”

“‘Specially ‘cos you two are like the only ones that never had anythin’ go down between you,” Niall says.

“Well, we made out once,” Liam mutters.

This lands with a resounding thud. Harry exclaims, “ _Liam_!” while Niall looks like someone just told him Margaret Thatcher is alive and well. Louis whips his head around so fast he tweaks his back.

“ _What_?” he says to Liam, who looks sheepish.

Zayn gets up and walks out the door, letting it slam shut behind him. All of them wince.

“Fuck,” Liam says, “I shouldn’t have said that… I forgot he was even here, he was being so quiet...”

“Back up,” Louis says, socking him in the shoulder. “When was this?”

“When I got separated from Ceci! It was just as a laugh. You and I weren’t even talking then — honestly, I think I was moaning on to Harry about how I missed you, and he kissed me to get my mind off you.”

“That’s exactly what happened,” Harry confirms.

“Oh,” Louis says. He tries to hide how pleasantly surprised he is by this. “Well, that’s fine, then.”

Harry gets up, clearing his throat. “I ought to, uh… Zayn…”

“Yeah, take care of that,” Niall says. “He’s never going to join back up at this rate. Criminy, you four are the absolute limit.”

The door shuts again, gently this time.

Louis starts laughing, bringing his hand to his eyes. “I forgot we were even gonna ask him,” he wheezes. “Poor Zayn, fucking hell, he has no idea why we dragged him here.”

Niall points at Liam. “Mick Fleetwood,” he says, very seriously.

“Stop!” Liam cries.

 

*

 

Harry finds Zayn in the back garden, sitting amongst the daffodils and jonquils and smoking a cigarette.

“Zayn,” he says.

Zayn looks up at him, hard-eyed. ”What?”

Harry comes over and sits down next to him. “You make a crap garden gnome,” he murmurs.

Zayn blows out smoke, his warm eyes glittering in the late afternoon sun. “I’m not narked ‘cos you snogged Liam,” he says. “I don’t care. I mean, _I’ve_ snogged Liam.”

Harry laughs.

“Assuming it wasn’t when we were together?”

“No, fuck no. You and Louis were still married.”

“Right.” Zayn fiddles with the cigarette, staring down at it. “I was annoyed ‘cos, like... I was such a fuckin’ afterthought to what was goin’ on in that room. And I feel like that all the time lately, I feel like an afterthought in everythin’ you do.”

“What?” Harry says, his heart dropping. “How?”

“Are we doing this?” Zayn says. “Are we doing this right now, at Louis’ house, in the middle of _your_ fuckin’ band meeting?”

“Zayn, for fuck’s sake!” Harry bursts out. “Why do you think I brought you along today? Was I really _that_ subtle? We were gonna ask you to join up with us on our next reunion tour!”

Zayn’s face goes through a complex series of expressions. “Wait, seriously?” he says.

“Yeah! So what fucking _afterthought_?”

He blows out smoke. “Alright, all that aside, that’s not even what I’m really talking about,” he says, getting to his feet and walking away, into a sun-splashed patch of grass.

Harry gets up too, brushing off his jeans. “Then what? Please just tell me. I hate this, I hate how distant you’ve been, I hate that we haven’t been having sex. Just tell me whatever it is.”

Zayn is silent.

Harry’s heart starts going very fast. His throat feels thick and tight. “Are you having an affair?”

Zayn’s face drops. He looks up. “What?”

“You can tell me if you are. But please, just tell me. Don’t make a fool out of me.”

“Harry, no, no no,” he pleads. “Please don’t think shit like that, fuck. I’m not, I swear.”

Harry exhales. “Alright.”

“It’s just this summer,” Zayn says. “I felt like such a fuckin’ useless piece of shit in the house all day, and all I did was take care of the kids, and if we went out to dinner or something, everyone was coming up to _you_ , photographing _you_ — and I was like, trapped, bored out of my skull. I never got comfortable in that house.”

“But I asked you! I asked you if you were unhappy, if you wanted to go home!”

“And how was I supposed to go home? When you kept sayin’ you wanted me there to come home to, and you couldn’t bear to be away from the girls for five months? What was I supposed to do, huh?”

“I’m sorry, but that’s _marriage_! Sometimes you have to sacrifice! And I didn’t even _know_ how much you were sacrificing, ‘cos you wouldn’t tell me! I can’t read your mind! I don’t ever want you to feel like that, but I didn’t know! There’s shit I could’ve done about it if I had!”

“You didn’t want to know!” Zayn yells. “You wanted everythin’ to be how _you_ wanted it, like you always do!”

“That’s not fair! I’ve compromised plenty for you!”

“Oh yeah? On what?”

“I live in Malibu just so you can be near your kids!”

“You’d spend half your time in Los Angeles anyway!”

“I’m sorry,” Harry shouts, his cheeks hot with anger, “if I asked you to go along with what I needed this summer, but I thought you wanted to support me!”

“What support did I even give you?” Zayn shouts back, and he stomps his cigarette butt into the grass under his heel. “I was basically a nanny! You were exhausted every time you got home, we barely had sex, you were moody —“

“ _I wonder why that was_!” Harry screams at him. He’s shaking with rage, now. “I wonder why, when I was playing the role of a dad who lost a child, in the _summertime_ , I was in my head and moody!”

Zayn’s face drops.

“In case you need me to spell it out for you, you dickhead, it’s ‘cos nearly every fucking day, in order to do my job, I had to pull up the memory of when I kept losing our babies, _over and over and over_ —“ Harry chokes on a dry sob.

“Oh, Harry…” Zayn closes the space between them in a few strides, and wraps his arms around him. “No, babe, I didn’t realize… I honestly never made the connection… I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Harry rasps, burying his face in Zayn’s shoulder. “I never said anything... I just hate bringing it up, you know I do...”

Zayn kisses him on the side of his face, stroking his hair.

“I should’ve just said something,” he mumbles into Zayn’s shirt. “I could tell you were restless, and I felt guilty... but it pissed me off, too, ‘cos I was under so much stress, I felt like you should just suck it up and deal with it… but that’s not fair at all, I know it’s not, that’s how any of this is supposed to work. I’m sorry.”

“We need to talk, and be honest, so this shit doesn’t happen.”

Harry wraps his arms around him, clutching roughly at the back of Zayn’s jacket. “Yeah.”

He clears his throat. “Why don’t we talk tonight, when we go home? We can just hang out in bed and talk like we used to… you can open a bottle of wine or w’ever…”

“That sounds nice, yeah...”

Zayn keeps stroking his hair.

 

*

 

“They are not _hoe_ shorts, Niall!”

Niall turns from the fridge and gives Louis another once-over. “I can see the outlines of your arse cheeks and your entire wang, they’re hoe shorts.”

“Hey, you quit looking at my husband’s wang,” Liam says, grinning.

Louis glances down at his cropped joggers. “It’s ‘cos I’m free ballin’, ‘cos my back hurts!”

Liam laughs and takes the beer Niall is handing him. “What does your back have to do with putting on underwear, honey?”

“I get lazy, is all.”

“I mean, I think you can pull ‘em off,” Niall says. “I’d look like a twat.”

“What, so I’m a twat?”

“No! You just look more at home in that sort of thing than me.”

“I look more at home in twat clothes?”

“Help me,” Niall says to Liam.

“You’re on your own, man,” Liam says.

In the hall, the glass patio door opens and slides shut.

“In the kitchen,” Louis calls.

Zayn and Harry enter, looking a bit tired in a post-marital argument way, but no worse for the wear.

“Hey,” Harry says.

Niall tosses him a beer underhand; Harry catches it with a smile.

“Everything okay?” Louis says. He looks at Zayn as he says it.

“Yeah,” Zayn says. “All fine.”

“We’d been needing to discuss something else,” Harry says, addressing Liam. “It wasn’t anythin’ to do with, y’know, us kissing.”

“Oh, alright,” Liam says.

“I’m keepin’ an eye on you, though,” Zayn says to him, with a friendly playfulness in his voice that Louis hasn’t heard him direct toward Liam in quite some time.

Liam laughs. “Look, Harry,” he says, “I want you to do that film. I really do. If it’s as good for your career as you say it is, it’d kill me if I was the one who stopped you doing it.”

“You _sure_?”

“Yeah, absolutely. But for God’s sake, I don’t want to hear anything more about it, alright? Put a lid on it.”

Harry laughs. “Deal.”

 

*

 

Once Liam has ascertained that the twins are not up to no good upstairs (they’re quietly amusing themselves in their room for once) and Sunday has volunteered herself to go pick up some pub takeout for them (Louis knows she only offered because she has a crush on the tattooed bartender at their local one, a fact which Liam is willfully ignorant of) the five of them settle back down in the den to actually discuss band things.

“So,” Harry says, clasping his hands together over his knee, “I mentioned to Zayn what — what we all had discussed.”

Louis glances at Zayn, who remains impassive.

“And what was his response,” Niall prompts.

“Actually I don’t believe he had one,” Harry says, turning to his husband. “We got pulled onto another subject, didn’t we?”

Zayn nods slowly.

“So,” Louis says.

“I mean, I guess it’s just like…” Zayn shrugs. “First off, logistically, the thing about me and Harry both on tour is, we’ve got the girls…”

“We were gonna do it over a summer,” Louis says. “Next summer, ideally. Payno and I've wanted the twins to spend another summer in England, anyway, get some time with our families… we thought you two might like to do the same. And the older kids won’t be a problem by then.”

“Right, and I actually managed to marry outside the band, so I’m covered,” Niall says. Louis flicks him for this, and he laughs.

“So we, what, have our mums pass our kids back and forth?” Zayn says to Harry.

“They’d love that, though,” Harry says. “And our sisters can have a few weeks in there, as well, if any of them want. I know Gemma’d love a weekend with them... and we wanted most of the dates to be in the U.K., so we’ll see them plenty, and they can even come to some shows.”

Zayn looks conflicted. “But I’m gonna have to record with you lot. I’m not on any of your records for the last nearly twenty years, and I don’t know any of it.”

“We’ve got some things we can record with you,” Liam says. “They’ve just got filed away. Louis has written one or two songs for us that have parts for you, even.”

Louis elbows him, embarrassed, but Zayn looks sort of appreciative.

“And we can write with you, if you like,” Liam adds. “Record in the winter and spring. A lot of the setlist was gonna be the old hits, anyway… those are still our most popular songs.”

Zayn looks down at his hands, and rubs his palms together. “Alright,” he says. “Can I, uh… Can I think about it? Can I have, like, a week?”

“No, decide right this second or get the fuck out,” Louis jokes. “Of course, mate, take a week.”

“I don’t have management right now,” Zayn says. “I just remembered.”

“Yeah, Harry mentioned.”

Harry arches a neat eyebrow at Louis.

“Well, you _did_ ,” he says.

“Right, but yeah,” Zayn says, “if I did this, there’d be a lot of, y’know.”

“Paperwork?” Harry supplies drily.

Zayn lets out a wry little laugh and reaches over to twist his nipple. “You’re funny, you’re real fucking funny.”

Harry bats his hand away, smiling.

Niall clears his throat. “Alright, absent a straight answer from Zayn, can the rest of compare calendars?”

Liam, Louis and Harry lift their wrists in unison so they can sync with him.

“Hang on,” Zayn interjects, “this isn’t, like, a pity thing, is it? ‘Cos of how I haven’t been doing anything lately?”

They all look at him in confusion. As they do, Louis and Liam’s airborne watches chime: Sunday is home.

“We assumed you were just taking some time off,” Liam says.

“And what exactly have _I_ been doing lately?” Louis adds.

Zayn looks relieved. “Alright, cool.”

“Well, I’m chuffed with our progress today, boys,” Niall says. “Now I just have to get Ireland back together.”

They’re laughing at this when Sunday pokes her head in the door, takeout bags in her hands. “Food,” she says, sort of unnecessarily.

“Ahh, Sunday,” Niall says in his warmest voice, immediately getting to his feet. “God bless you.”

 

*

 

When everyone else has gone into the back garden to watch Niall pal around with the boys, Liam finds Zayn alone in the kitchen, looking in the fridge.

He stands behind him for a few long moments, anxious about what he wants to say. Finally Zayn turns, a string cheese in his hand.

They stare at each other for a beat. Zayn lifts the cheese. “You’ve got the ones with the twist,” he says.

“Huh?”

“They’re like, half-cheddar, half —”

“Oh, right, right.”

“Yeah. Those are the best ones.”

“They are,” Liam agrees.

Zayn eyes him. “You good?”

“Yeah, um…” Liam comes over and sits down at the island, mostly just to have something to do. “I wanted to say something to you.”

He shrugs. “Go ‘head.”

“Just, like. I know we’ve been getting along fine these last few years, and I’m glad for that  —”

“I’d been too hard on you, I think,” Zayn interrupts.

Liam doesn’t know what to say to this, so he just remains silent.

“It’s just ‘cos… I dunno. Honestly, the thing that always bothered me was, uh.” He shrugs and trails off.

“What?”

“Just like, that you slept with Louis but let me keep confidin’ in you about how things were tough between me and him. That was like, the real knife in my back, mate. Almost even more than you trying to get him back after.”

Liam nods. “I get that,” he says.

“Especially ‘cos you were the only one who didn’t hate me for leaving.”

“I know. I think, um, my logic there was that it would hurt you unnecessarily to know what had happened, and I felt like you needed me as a confidant, and I didn’t want to tell you something that was over with but would make you turn your back on me. But then I like… couldn’t stop feeling how I felt about Louis, so that fucked up all my good intentions. I got really, um, mixed up… I thought I was doing what was best, and I wasn’t…”

It’s been so long, Liam barely remembers that time in his life. The emotions of it have faded over the years — too much for him to properly recall the intensity of them — but he knows on an intellectual level what it was like. He was in a haze of confusion and stress, facing down the end of this five-year whirlwind. And maybe it was only puppy love, back then, not the mature love they’ve got now, but he was in love with Louis. He wanted to raise his child with him. Underneath a tsunami of alpha hormones and emotional upheaval, there were real feelings there — feelings that survived the storm, a little bud growing up from between a crack in the sidewalk that endured for years after. A tender protectiveness of Louis and deeper admiration for him that bloomed as the baby grew, and never went away.

“Does that make sense?” he says.

Zayn nods. “As logic in a twenty-one year old’s head? Yeah.”

“It was a crazy time, around then.”

“Yeah. Absolutely.”

“Anyway, I just wanted to say that I’d like to make an effort with us,” Liam says. He keeps steady eye contact with Zayn, who’s tilting his head. “Try and have an actual friendship with you again, I mean. Not just the polite… politery.”

Zayn is quiet. “Where’s this coming from?”

He clears his throat. “Maybe it’s the stuff with your son, I don’t know. He reminds me a lot of you, and… I dunno, watching him go through this shit...”

“Right. Y’know, I do appreciate you bein’ there for him. You’re a good stepdad.”

“I’ve never tried to replace you,” Liam is quick to reply.

“I know. Look, I know ‘ow tough it was for you two, raising three teenagers most of the week. I don’t envy you that. And me and Harry are both grateful to you lot for, y’know, sort of bein’ the hardarses so me and him could be more of the chill weekend house.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t always fun,” Liam says, chuckling. “If you were ever worried about me being in their lives too much, you should’ve heard how many times I got the ‘you’re not my real dad’ routine from Amir these last few years.”

Zayn snorts. “He loves you, though, y’know.”

Liam is touched by this. “Does he?”

“Yeah. I’m sure he’s probably never said it to you, but he does.”

(He’s right that Amir has never said it. Even Mia only said it for the first time when she moved out — she and Louis had a long goodbye hug in the middle of her dorm room, and then when Louis ducked into the hall to regain his composure, she hugged Liam and told him she loved him and was going to miss him.

“I love you too, Mims,” Liam said to her, patting her hard on the back. “Come home whenever you like, okay?”)

“I think he likes that you’re good to Louis,” Zayn says.

There’s something significant to the way he says this, but whatever the implication is, it’s lost on Liam. “Hey, well,” he says, in a sort of blustery way.

“Look, uh… don’t take it hard you weren’t there for me back then. I kept a lot of people at arm's length.”

“I know, but I think I gave you an especially easy job of it.”

Zayn laughs. “Well, I’m here. If you wanna hang out without the husbands, get some coffee or something. Talk music, whatever.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Cool. Can I eat my cheese stick now?”

Liam grins. “Yeah.”

 

*

 

“You’re a shit goalkeeper,” Louis calls from the patio.

Niall, who’s got his hands half-stuffed into a pair of Mia’s old goalie mitts like he’s O.J. trying on the bloody glove, glances up. His moment of distraction allows Max to drive a ball hard into the net behind him.

“That’s twenty,” Max shouts, fist bumping with Patrick.

“I’m just stiff,” Niall shouts back across the backyard. “Gettin’ warmed up. Hittin’ me stride. You’ll see.”

Louis chuckles and glances over at Harry, who’s sitting across the table, smiling.

“He’s gonna keel over trying to keep up with them,” Harry murmurs.

“Yeah, I think that’s why they like him so much. He’s the only adult alive who still bothers to try.”

“I can’t imagine entertaining them.”

“It’s just like havin’ a pair of border collies. Me and Liam turn them loose to run ‘emselves silly and then throw ‘em in the backseat when they’re done.”

“Makes me glad I’ve got a pair of quiet girls.”

“Yeah, I can’t picture Zayn dealing with these two.”

“He’d vanish into thin air. Just pop out of existence, there’d be a nose ring spinning on the floor.”

Louis giggles and does his Zayn impression: “‘I’m gonna count to one, and if you all haven’t shut the fook up by then…’”

Harry has a good chuckle at this.

“So you two got it sorted, earlier? Everything alright?”

Harry nods. “Yeah. Just some… y’know. Stuff from this summer.”

He drains the rest of his beer as if to punctuate this.

“Right,” Louis says, even though ‘stuff’ could mean absolutely anything.

Before Harry can elaborate, Zayn and Liam come out the patio door.

“Speak of the devil,” Harry says.

Zayn points to himself, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, you.”

“I’m not the devil,” he says. “This one’s the devil.” He points to Louis.

Liam chuckles.

“‘Scuse me,” Louis retorts, “I am _injured_ , I’m in pain —”

Zayn and Harry make noises of mock sympathy while Liam comes around the table and wraps his arms around Louis, swaying him back and forth, singing, “He’s in-juuured, he’s _injuuured_ , little Lou-Lou…”

“Fuck all of you,” Louis says, laughing.

Liam gives him a kiss on the head. “Niall,” he shouts, “you need some help there?”

Niall, who is currently trying to bat down a volley of PKs that Patrick is firing off, raises his hands in surrender. “A bit!”

Liam heads down the hill toward them, chuckling, and Zayn takes a seat between Louis and Harry.

“Smoke?” he says to Louis, digging for his cigarettes in his pocket.

“Oh yeah,” Louis says appreciatively.

Harry groans. “Please…”

“Oh, you’ll live, Harold,” Louis says, taking the cig Zayn hands him.

“I won’t, actually. I’ll die sooner.”

“Nah, that's not it,” Zayn says, his own cigarette waggling between his lips as he roots around for his lighter. “We know you just don’t like the smell.”

“He’s got you there,” Louis says.

 Zayn shoots a conspiratorial wink at him as he lights his cigarette.

“And I know you two’re just trying to tick me off,” Harry says.

“You hear something?” Louis says to Zayn, taking the lighter from him.

Zayn cups his hand to his ear. “Sounded like the wind.”

Harry reaches over and plucks Zayn’s cigarette from his fingers, placing it between his lips and taking a drag. He looks unfairly cool doing this.

“Wankers,” he says, blowing out smoke.

Zayn steals the cigarette back. “Stop it. That’s bad for you.”

“Yeah, think about your kids, Harry,” Louis says.

He shakes his head at them in amusement.

“Are you wearing a mood ring right now?” Louis adds.

Harry looks down at his fingers. “Oh. Yeah. Toni gave it to me.”

Zayn smiles. “What mood’re you in?”

Harry smiles back at him. “Passionate,” he says, twirling the ring.

 

MALIBU, NOVEMBER 4, 2034

When they get home, Amir is sat in a dining room chair in the middle of the sitting room with a paper crown on his head, a blanket draped over his shoulders like a cape, and gold glitter smeared over his cheeks. The girls are kneeling on the floor in front of him, play-acting that they’re pleading with him about something.

“I’m the mean king,” he explains to them, when Zayn and Harry appear in the door and raise their eyebrows at the scene in front of them. “I think they’re peasants going through a famine or something.”

“We are,” Toni confirms. “But Marlena is the king’s secret sister, and he knows that, but he still won’t give her any food.”

“My family is _dying_ ,” Marlena cries, and theatrically flings herself to the floor.

“Very creative,” Harry says in approval.

“Is the glitter necessary?” Zayn says.

Amir laughs. “I was told it was.”

“I think it looks fetching on him, actually,” Harry says. “Hey, we’ll be upstairs, alright?”

The girls wave them off without a care in the world, clearly eager to get back to their game.

Harry heads into the kitchen, though, and starts uncorking a bottle of wine even though he had four beers at Louis and Liam’s.

“Alright there?” Zayn says to him.

“Just blowing off some steam,” Harry says. “I’m allowed a tipple, I’ve been working non-stop since January.”

“Maybe touring next year isn’t such a good idea.”

“You kidding? The band’s the closest I get to a break these days… the rest of them do nearly all the writing, and I could sing half our standbys in my sleep.” He pops the cork out and pours himself a small glass. “Look, if you don’t want to join us, just say so. I don’t care either way, it’s just a matter of logistics.”

“Nah, that’s not it,” Zayn says. “But thanks for your enthusiasm.”

Harry snorts and sips his wine.

“I just worry about it being weird. I feel like your fans are gonna throw tomatoes at me.”

“Why would security let them bring tomatoes in? That seems like an oversight.”

“Harry,” Zayn says, annoyed.

“Fine — they would never, but if they did, who cares? Think of all the _money_. Piles of it, guaranteed. Your fans, plus ours, plus my solo fans, Niall’s—”

“You know who you sound like right now? Your ex-girlfriend.”

“Which one?”

“Tay-Tay.”

“Oh, you mean your best friend?”

Zayn laughs. “Meow.”

“You know I’ve got no problem with her, I just like giving you a hard time.”

“I know, drunk boy.”

Harry smiles at him and has a bigger sip. “I’m not drunk,” he says. “Maybe a bit tipsy. So, you wanna go talk?”

“Yeah, let’s,” Zayn says.

Harry starts on his way out of the kitchen, and Zayn comes up behind him, slipping his hands down the front of his jeans and biting at his ear.

“Is this talking?” Harry says in a low murmur, reaching behind himself to hook a finger in Zayn’s belt loop.

“Let’s just see where it goes, love.”

“You’re gonna make me spill my wine.”

Zayn cups his hand under Harry’s where it’s resting under the bulb of the glass, then raises it to his lips and forces him to finish the rest of it.

“No I’m not,” he whispers, taking the glass from him and setting it on the counter.

“Oh,” Harry murmurs. He can feel his face flushing.

Zayn pushes him toward the stairs.

 

*

 

Zayn doesn’t think about getting hard, because if he thinks about it, it’s not going to happen. So instead he focuses his attention like a laser on Harry.

Harry seems to be fine with this. He’s in an unusually needy mood, sort of a prickly, raw state; Zayn can feel nasty energy crackling off him, and he wants so badly to fuck him. He thinks that even more than needing to talk, they need to disappear into each other, to remember that they’re not so different at all.

Harry pulls away from him while they’re snogging. “You hard?” he says, his voice nothing more than a heady crackle, his face and lips flushed.

“Yeah,” Zayn says, pressing him back down onto the bed.

Harry reaches down for him, massaging his cock through his pants. His own hard-on is pressed to Zayn’s leg, growing more insistent as they kiss.

“Lemme undress you,” Zayn says.

Harry nods mutely. Zayn tears his jeans down off him, then violently rips his button-down apart, scattering buttons on the duvet like little black pearls.

Harry’s eyes light up. He tips his head back. “Are you gonna be rough with me?”

Zayn grabs him hard by the jaw. “How rough d’you want it?”

“God,” Harry moans.

“Answer me.”

“You know what I want… shut up and just give it to me already…”

Zayn slides out of his own jeans and reaches past him for the lube. “Mouthy tonight,” he says in appreciation.

“I’ve been dreaming about it,” Harry says, staring up at him, his hair fanned out on the bed under him. “About you fucking me.”

His heart is pounding, his mouth dry. “Yeah?”

“Yeah…”

Zayn starts to finger him and lays back down with him. They kiss hard as he works himself up to his knuckles. His hard-on rubs between their stomachs and against Harry’s, and this is profoundly exciting to both of them: their glorious release from impotence prison.

“Put it in,” Harry begs him, nuzzling Zayn’s nose with his own. “C’mon. I’m ready. I need you.”

“How bad?”

“Really bad.”

“What are you gonna do if I don’t?” Zayn teases, although he’s already got his hand around his cock and is nudging the tip against Harry’s arsehole.

“Stop,” Harry moans.

“You wanna do doggy, or get on top, or anything?”

“No, I want this… I want to kiss you, and look at you…”

“Okay,” Zayn whispers, and leans in to suck on Harry’s full upper lip as he slides into him.

Harry shivers and whines, grabbing him hard by the back of the neck.

“Oh, babe,” Zayn groans, “you’re so tight, Jesus Christ...”

Harry’s eyes flutter and unfocus. He’s smiling. “Good,” he says softly. “I wanna make you come.”

“Oh, I’m gonna.”

“Come as fast as you want… come in me… maybe we’ll make another baby…”

Zayn laughs. “We can’t, you’ve got your smut film to make,” he whispers, kissing Harry’s neck and starting to move in him.

Harry lets out a soft moan. “I don’t care… I’d rather be pregnant…”

Zayn feels a stab of grief that he likely can’t give that to Harry ever again. He says nothing, just pushes a hand into Harry’s hair and works his hips, delirious in the hot clutch of him. Harry sighs.

He looks beautiful like this, his head thrown back, all sharp angles and soft mouth. Zayn presses kisses to the heat of his throat. He can feel Harry’s cock pressed between their stomachs, rock-hard and dripping already; he’s not even gonna bother touching him.

“You’re not being very rough,” Harry murmurs to him.

Zayn chuckles and slows his hips. “Sorry… you still want that?”

“Little harder an’ faster would be nice.”

Zayn starts working at him harder, really pumping his hips. Harry lets out a breath, and his eyelids fall again. He settles his hands on Zayn’s waist, holding onto him as he moves.

“I miss your hair,” Harry says. Zayn likes how his voice hitches mid-sentence as he pulls nearly all the way out before ramming back into him.

“Thought you liked it like this, like butch cut length.”

“No, it’s hot, but I wanna grab a handful of it…”

“It grows fast,” he pants.

“There’s just nothing else to grab onto,” Harry says, chuckling sexily. “No arse or anything.”

“Damn. Ouch. Grab the bed, you big baby.”

Harry smirks at him and spreads his tattooed arms over the bed, grabbing two white-knuckled fistfuls of the sheets. Zayn leans back into him, nuzzling into his throat under his ear, kissing and biting the skin there.

“I’m gonna come,” Harry murmurs.

“Good… come…”

Harry gives him a low moan.

 

*

 

While Harry cleans up, Zayn smokes a cigarette on the balcony, looking out over the ocean.

He hears the water stop, and then Harry crossing the bedroom floor.

Harry pokes his head out the door and squints at Zayn. “Bit chilly out.”

“I like it,” Zayn says.

“You want to have some dinner?”

Zayn flicks his butt onto the table. “Were you and me gonna talk?”

“Yeah, I thought we could before bed,” Harry says. “I think we’re alright, aren’t we? Marital cataclysm successfully avoided?”

Zayn laughs. “Yeah, we’re alright. C’mere.”

Smiling, Harry comes to him and bends down; Zayn gives him a kiss.

 

*

 

In the kitchen, Harry starts dressing chicken breasts while Zayn measures out rice. Amir walks in after a few minutes, missing his cape and crown, but still glitter-faced.

“Hey Dad,” he says, “I know I’m grounded, but Evan can come over here, right?”

“Sure,” Zayn says, glancing up. “What were you gonna do?”

“Just hang out, watch TV.”

“Alright. That it?” he says, thinking of Evan’s cocaine charge.

Amir gets a defensive, cagey look. “Yeah, that’s it, why?”

“Nothing, I was just wondering.”

“We’re just friends,” he says.

Zayn’s brow knits. “I didn’t say you weren’t?”

Amir looks embarrassed, then. “Alright, whatever,” he says, and slinks back out of the room.

Zayn turns to Harry in disbelief; Harry seems amused.

“What d’you reckon _that_ was about?” Zayn says.

“No idea, but he’s so your son.”

“Ah, piss off… think he was taking a page out of his stepfather’s book, honestly…”

“Who, Liam?” Harry says distractedly.

“No, genius, you.”

“Aww,” Harry says, clearly pleased by the idea of him rubbing off on Amir. “I guess I am a bit vague, sometimes...”

“A _bit_?”

Marlena runs into the kitchen, then. She’s glittery now, too. “I’m hungry,” she says.

Zayn picks her up and hoists her onto the counter, making her giggle. She reminds him a lot of Harry when she laughs. She reminds him a lot of Harry in general, really; he loves that about her.

She looks so much like Harry that a couple years back, a gossip site had floated a theory that she wasn’t even Zayn’s. They compared her features to a guy that had played drums in Harry’s backing band, ages ago. It drove Zayn crazy to see people speculating about that after all they’d gone through trying to have a baby, but Harry laughed it off easily. “She has your exact eyebrows and nose, especially when she’s angry,” he said. “It’s uncanny. And these morons wouldn’t know that.”

“Almost ready,” he says. “Help me stir the rice?”

He hands her the plastic spoon, and she diligently stirs the rice around as he pours a cup of water into the pot.

“Does it have the herbs in it?” Marlena says. She says herbs with a hard H no matter how many times they correct her.

Zayn nods. “But no cilantro this time.”

“Okay, good,” she says in relief. “It tastes like soap.”

“Where’s your sister?” Harry says, looking up from the chicken.

“Playing with Bucky.”

Bucky is their neighbor’s dachshund who likes to burrow into their yard; Toni has forged a friendship with him over the course of a year of jailbreaks. (Zayn suspects he likes her so much because she feeds him expensive deli meats she pilfers. Several times now he’s heard Harry go into the kitchen and open the fridge, only to wail, “My soppressata!”)

“We really ought to just get our own dog,” Harry says, rinsing his hands off and starting on the salad.

Marlena lights up and gasps.

“Hush,” Zayn says to Harry. “You’re gonna get them all excited.”

Harry grins. “You don’t want a puppy, love?”

“Two puppies!” Marlena challenges.

Harry comes over to her with a very serious look on his face, then starts tickling her. “ _Three_ puppies.”

“Careful,” Zayn says, putting a protective arm between her and the stove as she giggles and writhes around. “I’ve got flames here, you maniacs.”

 

*

 

Amir has a sudden realization halfway through the movie. “Pause,” he says to the TV, which obliges, and slides off his bed.

Evan looks up at him, confused.

“Just have to piss,” he says.

The Internet had told him that for a male omega, the test would be accurate beginning two weeks after the night in question. Amir bought it on Wednesday night from the 7/11 down the street (with sunglasses and a hoodie on) and he’d stashed it under the sink in his room at Zayn’s; he finds it still there, undisturbed.

He quickly pees on it and then sits there on the closed toilet seat, waiting. It’s only supposed to take a minute.

It does, just as advertised. _Not Pregnant._

Amir heaves a sigh of relief so emphatic that he nearly slips sideways off the toilet. He wraps the test in a dozen layers of toilet paper and stuffs it at the bottom of the trash can, then heads back into his room.

“That was the longest piss ever,” Evan remarks.

“I was texting my sister,” Amir lies.

“Hmm,” Evan says, raising his eyebrows.

“Fuck off…”

Amir settles back down next to Evan on the pillows and starts the movie again. There’s an awkward four inches between them. Amir keeps waiting for Evan to touch him, but he seems hesitant. Neither of them are paying a bit of attention to the movie, which is some Marvel nonsense.

Finally Amir scoots over and deposits himself in the crook of Evan’s arm. Evan immediately wraps said arm around him.

“You could’ve done that ages ago,” Amir says in exasperation, his cheeks hot.

“I wasn’t sure, man.”

“Oh my God.”

“And I’m a little afraid of your dad, honestly.”

“Please, my dad isn’t scary.”

“He has a neck tattoo! And he always looks so serious!”

“We can _cuddle_ , he’s not gonna do anything to you,” Amir says. “He’s not even gonna come in here, I think him and my stepdad are talking or boning or something.”

“Alright,” Evan murmurs. He starts playing with the end of Amir’s sleeve.

“Hey… you actually smell kind of good,” Amir says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah…” Amir leans into him, nuzzling at his neck. “Is that cologne? Real cologne?”

Evan laughs nervously. “Stop…”

“Stop what?”

“Stop flirting, it makes me dumb as fuck. My hands are sweating like crazy.”

“I’m not flirting!”

“Please! How is that not flirting!”

“Lemme feel,” Amir says, and he takes Evan’s hand in his, running his fingers along his palm. “Oh, shit, you _are_ sweaty.”

“Heads up, this is also flirting.”

“Swear I don’t mean to.”

“It’s okay.”

Amir snuggles back up against him. “Okay.”

Evan shifts under him, clearing his throat. “You wanna rewind the movie?”

“Nah. I just put it on so this wouldn’t be as awkward.”

Evan laughs. “I figured.”

 

*

 

“I don’t know how to slow my career momentum down,” Harry says. “If that was even something I wanted to do.”

Zayn reaches up and rubs at his eye. They’ve been lying here talking for at least an hour, and he’s starting to drift off, but Harry seems ready to go ten rounds.

“I’m not askin’ you to slow your career down,” he says. “I don’t want that.”

“Then what are you asking from me?”

“I dunno,” Zayn says, frustrated. “I dunno. I’m sorry that sometimes I wish you were less successful. I know that ain’t fair. It’s not ‘cos I’m not proud of you, I’m so proud of you, I just I feel like I have to share you with the entire world all the time.”

“But I’m _yours_ ,” Harry cries out. “It’s you I want to come home to. It’s our life that keeps me going. It’s you and the girls that I think about all day. D’you think that when I’m sitting on set shivering in a towel after a twelve hour day, I wouldn’t rather be cuddled up with the three of you? D’you think I don’t miss you all terribly every time I’m gone? But I can’t just give up my career when I’ve been working toward certain things for decades, now, and there’s people whose entire livelihoods depend on me, and there’s a part of me that just wouldn’t be fulfilled if I didn’t work —“

“I know, I know, love.”

“All I wanted this summer was to talk to you and share with you, but you were always so prickly...”

Anger flares in Zayn’s chest. “I was tired, bruv! From lookin’ after our kids all day!”

Harry sits up, his cross glittering on his neck. “But you never once actually said to me that you felt overwhelmed!”

“What would you have done? What could we do about it? Nothin’. I thought of everythin’, and there was literally no solution.”

“If you’d told me how hard it was, and how hard you were struggling to stay sober, I would’ve immediately told you to take the girls and go stay with your mum. I could’ve easily flown from France to England on my days off!”

Zayn is quiet. “Alright, I didn't think of that.”

“Look, I think we can just chalk this summer up to just miscommunication,” Harry says, “but the bigger problem isn’t going away.”

It’s been an issue for them for a while. Zayn thinks of a time four years ago when Harry was doing his first film after he had Marlena — he got roped into joining him during a press engagement, and had to sit there in a hotel room smiling at Harry’s side while the interviewer either ignored him or talked about him like he wasn’t there. Zayn stormed out of the interview so fast he accidentally left with his lav still on, so he ended up causing a hot mic incident when Harry chased him into the hallway, hissing, “You are making a _scene_!” and Zayn screamed back, “OH, YEAH, GOD FORBID YOUR CHAV HUSBAND MAKES A FOOKIN’ SCENE!”

The audio went live on TMZ mere hours later, and everyone immediately (and erroneously) assumed they were each headed for a second divorce. Harry’s manager then bullied them into doing a series of loved-up pap walks all across Los Angeles until everyone got bored of predicting when they’d split up.

This all wouldn’t be a problem if everyone else didn’t force a narrative around it. Zayn’s happy with his career, he’s happy with Harry’s, and at the end of the day he thinks of them as a power couple.

But it has been worse, lately, since Zayn’s been taking some time off. He can’t help but feel like the world has gone on spinning without him.

Zayn sits up, then, and looks at him. “Maybe we should just do more things just us.”

Harry nods. “I sort of —“ he hesitates. “Louis told me that things are good with him and Liam lately…”

Zayn nods. He’s figured they have been. He can always tell if Louis is getting fucked properly or not.

“... and he said it’s ‘cos they’ve been taking more time for each other, like going on little holidays and things.”

“We go on holiday,” Zayn says.

Harry smiles wryly. “Just us?”

“Aw, but the girls love goin’ on holiday with us…”

“But you see what I mean, right?”

Zayn rubs at his goatee. “Yeah, I do.”

“You know how much I need that sort of intimacy with you… the idea that you think that goes away when I get really into a project is crazy.”

“It’s not that, it’s that everyone feels entitled to a piece of you… and I know that’s true of me too, but you actually give the pieces.”

Harry army crawls toward him on the bed, then cuddles up against him. He looks up at Zayn with those big wounded eyes, his mouth soft, and says, “I don’t give them anything that really matters. I don’t belong to anyone but you... I’ve belonged to you since I was seventeen. Decades of fuckups, being apart, heartache, all of it, and I’m still yours. Don’t forget that.”

“I don’t,” Zayn says, and kisses him, wrapping his arms around him. “I don’t. Just don’t take me for granted, that’s all I ask. ‘Cos that’s exactly what everyone wants to think you do.”

“I can’t help them thinking that,” Harry whispers. “If I could, I’d’ve stopped it ages ago.”

Zayn snorts and runs his fingers through Harry’s hair. “Hold a presser… ‘yeah, uh, ‘scuse me, I just need you all to know, I don’t take Zayn for fuckin’ granted, alright? We both unload the dishwasher, so shut the fuck up.’”

Harry laughs. “Hey... remember when I was pregnant, and I said I didn’t want a baby shower even though I really wanted one, ‘cos I was so afraid to jinx things? And you threw me that big party, and you were very insistent that it _wasn’t_ a baby shower, it was just a party where we happened to be playing baby games and doing presents? To beat the jinx?”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, smiling. Harry had been overjoyed when the surprise was revealed, to the point of tears (he was really hormonal around then). “I was afraid you’d be mardy, ‘cos I went rogue.”

“Noo, that was one of the sweetest things you’ve ever done for me.”

“What made you think about that?”

“Just thinking about nice things.” Harry lets out a soft sigh. “I really do love you a pathetic amount, you know. If people knew how pathetic I was for you, they wouldn’t say the things they do.”

“Wish I could say it didn’t bother me,” Zayn says. “I know it doesn’t bother you as much.”

Harry shrugs. “I know what’s right,” he says. “It doesn’t matter what they say. They don’t get to decide what the truth is. We do.”

“Y’know, if I link up with the band again, they’re gonna say some real out of pocket shit.”

A slow smile rises to Harry’s lips, and his eyes twinkle. “So you’re considering it?”

“I’m considering it,” Zayn admits.

“Good…”

He sighs. “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“Just remembered I told Liam I’d get coffee with him.”

“Really?”

“Yeah… he was going on about how he missed me… but what the fuck are we gonna talk about?”

“Catch up with each other?”

“I already know everythin’ what’s up with him, he’s my kids’ stepdad. We just don’t talk directly much, is all.”

“Well,” Harry says, “then you’ll have shit to talk about.”

Zayn sighs.

“Talk about music,” Harry suggests. “That’s always safe.”

“Yeah, that’s what I had in mind. I’ll put it off ‘til after I decide about the band, that way I’ll know what it’s gonna be like going in. ‘Cos if I say no, he’s gonna be sheepdogging me on Louis’ behalf, I just know it.”

Harry reaches up and boops his nose. “You’re insecure,” he sings, “don’t know what for...”

“Yeah… uh… how d’you all feel about taking that one off the setlist entirely?”

“We can’t, we’d be tarred and feathered and dragged through the streets.”

Zayn snorts. “I had to at least ask.”

Harry smiles at him. “Hey,” he says, “you know I am proud of you, right?”

Zayn nods. “Nice to hear, though.”

“You’ve come really far as a person, but you’re still yourself, y’know? It’s hard to do, when you’re in the public eye like us.”

Zayn leans in to kiss him; Harry wraps his arms around him, smoothing his thumbs over the nape of his neck.

 

CALABASAS, NOVEMBER 4, 2034

“Ple-ease,” Louis whines from the bed.

“I’m so tired,” Liam calls back to him with a mouth full of toothpaste, then spits. “I swear as soon as I get in bed I’m gonna pass out.”

“But I only take muscle relaxants like six times a year, Payno, and you know how good they make sex.”

“For _you_! For me it’s the same thing, except you’re floppier.”

“I’ll make it worth your while. I never got around to suckin’ your dick, did I? I was too hungover.”

“How are you gonna suck my dick if it’s in you?”

“I’m _very_ talented.”

Liam comes back out of the bathroom, wiping his mouth. Louis spreads his legs and smiles prettily.

“Louis,” Liam says in exasperation.

“What’d you do today that made you so fuckin’ tired?”

Liam sits on the bed next to him, sighing, and pats him on the thigh. “I played basketball with the boys, then we went on a hike, then we got lunch, then Grant wanted to show us this drone he got, so I had to help him carry the fuckin’ thing up a hill, then we went back down the hill and realized he’d got a flat. And like I told you lot, I was the only one of us that knew how to replace it, so I changed his tire, then I came back here for this nutso band meeting —“

“Hey, it was productive.”

“Productive, absolutely, but nutso, you have to admit.”

“I admit.”

“And then I played footie with Niall and the boys for an hour, and I’m really pretty exhausted, babe.”

“I’ll be on top,” Louis offers.

Liam lifts his eyebrows. “With your back?”

“It’s all good now. I laid on a tennis ball, I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yes! Now get your cock out, for fuck’s sake.”

“Alright,” Liam says agreeably, and he collapses on his back onto the bed, shimmying his jeans off his arse.

Louis strips, tossing his clothes aside, and climbs on top of him. They cuddle for a while, kissing while Louis jerks him until he’s hard. Liam nuzzles in Louis’ armpit and bites at the soft, sinewy underside of his bicep.

“You there?” Louis finally murmurs, and bites Liam’s lower lip.

“Mmm,” Liam breathes. “Think so.”

“Good.”

Louis, true to his word, takes care of everything. Liam just lays there and watches as Louis lubes him up, and then as he settles down onto him, letting out a shuddering sigh.

He closes his eyes and reaches forward, closing his hands hard over Louis’ thighs, fingers digging into his flesh.

“I like that,” Louis says dreamily.

Liam reaches around behind Louis and grabs his arse, too.

“You can smack that if you like," Louis says.

He opens his eyes. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, smiling cutely.

Liam gives him a brisk spank on one cheek, right where the new tattoo is.

Louis lets out a soft sigh of appreciation. “Sorry I can't go any faster, I don’t wanna press me luck, here…”

“That’s alright, this is nice.”

Louis smiles down at him as he slowly rolls his hips. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not gonna fall asleep?”

“Noo,” Liam murmurs. With his arse-slapping hand, he reaches for Louis’ cock, thumbing the foreskin back. “I’m gonna make you come too, is what I’m gonna do.”

“Yeah?” Louis breathes, rocking him a bit deeper.

Liam starts playing with him with one hand, massaging his tip, and with the other he keeps ahold of his thigh, trying to grab him hard enough to leave marks. Louis loves it when he leaves a mark, it keeps him hot all through the next day.

Louis shifts on him, leaning forward slightly, and lets out a soft moan.

“You’re making me wanna flip you,” Liam says hoarsely.

“Don’t, don’t, that’ll definitely fuck my back.”

Liam, frustrated, rubs at Louis’ cock harder, tickling his balls. Louis makes a choked moan of gratitude.

“You’re so noisy,” Liam murmurs.

Louis grins. “Don’t you like that about me?”

“I love that about you, I just always thought you’d quiet down with age...”

“Oh, no, loves, I’m gonna be eighty and screamin’ your name.”

Liam finds this oddly comforting.

“You gonna come anytime soon?” Louis says, riding him harder into the bed. “‘Cos I’m getting tired up here.”

“Are _you_ gonna come anytime soon? My hand’s cramping.”

“What a pair.”

“You’re the one who wanted to have sex, babe.”

“Here, alright — gently, let’s…” Louis slowly begins lowering himself onto his side, with some help from Liam, who manages to only slip out of him a little.

They lie face to face on their sides, then, Louis with a leg draped over Liam’s hip, Liam smoothly pistoning his hips while he jerks Louis off until he comes all over his own stomach with a soft cry of pleasure.

“G’night,” Louis chirps, then, and lets his head fall against the pillow.

“No, no no,” Liam murmurs, laughing and kissing him on the neck. “I gotta get mine.”

Louis wraps an arm around his shoulders, gazing at him with sleepy warmth in his blue eyes. “Hey, I am happy,” he says. “What I said the other day… if it sounded at all like I wasn’t… ‘s’not what I meant.”

“I understood,” Liam assures him.

“Alright… good.”

“How’s those muscle relaxers doing for you?”

Louis grins. “Doing great. You feel real good. You see how much I came?”

“Yeah, it was hot…” He nuzzles Louis’ throat, sucking under his ear.

“Hey, hey, no hickies…”

“I can give you _one_ hickey.”

“Think of our innocent children.”

“They should know we like each other,” Liam murmurs, and rakes his teeth over his saliva-wet skin as he rocks into him. Louis shivers and makes a little sound.

“I think they do,” Louis breathes in his ear.

“Good.”

 

MALIBU, NOVEMBER 8, 2034

“You sure you don’t want to come with me?” Zayn says, leaning on the ornately stenciled wall of their massive closet.

Harry smoothes his hands over his front and turns to the side. “I’d love to,” he says, “I’ve just got to do press, you know I do.”

The press tour for his murdered son film, _Sous La Seine_ , has been getting underway this past week. So Harry’s been spending his afternoons in sterile hotel rooms in L.A., saying over and over to different magazine writers in his low drawl, “Yeah, it really took becoming a dad, myself, to be able to bring the emotional weight that playing this character required...”

The sheer amount of puffery Harry has to do seems unnecessary, to Zayn. Maybe it’s because it’s a foreign film that’ll need a lot of salesmanship to do well with American audiences, but the movie is the movie, it’s fairly self-explanatory. But he wonders if this is just leftover annoyance from how trying he found this summer, except misdirected at the film itself.

“Big deal for Mims, starting in this match,” he says. “It’s nice if she’s got a big cheerin’ section.”

Harry squints at himself in the mirror some more. “Hand me the, uhh...” he says, pointing behind Zayn at the belt rack.

Zayn fetches a belt (he knew immediately which one Harry meant).

“I know,” Harry says regretfully, as he laces it through the loops. “I’d love to come, I just can’t skip this. Wish her luck from me.”

“Can do.”

Harry turns to the side again, his brow furrowed. “Do I look alright?”

Zayn shrugs. “Yeah… I mean, it’s a bit boring.”

“See, that’s what I thought,” Harry says. “I can’t do boring, ‘cos Justin is gonna dress boring.”

(American actor Justin King had played his husband in this flick. Zayn doesn’t like King much, he’s sort of a blowhard and flirts excessively with Harry, but luckily Harry isn’t a big fan of him either.)

“I’d ditch the belt,” Zayn says. “It ages you, like.”

The girls run out from the other room of the walk-in, then, dripping with jewelry and the feathered boas Harry keeps in there so they can amuse themselves pretending to be larger than life dames. No one realized until this morning that had today off for a teacher workday; Harry was about to take them off to school when he double checked the calendar on the fridge console, laughed and said, “Darlings, you’ve had a last minute reprieve.”

“Daddy,” Toni says to Zayn, “can we go to Desca — Descano — Sescando Garden?”

“Yeah, when we get back, ladybug,” Zayn says. “I told you, Greta’s gonna watch you this afternoon.”

“Can we go to Mia’s game?” Marlena says, fluffing her boa. One of Zayn’s diamond chains is glittering around her neck.

“You don’t _want_ to go,” Harry says, still musing over his outfit. “You lot hate football, you think it’s boring.”

“I can never tell which one is Mia,” Toni says. “They’re too far away. And everything happens too fast.”

Harry nods. “And American commentary is hard to follow,” he intones. “Zayn, d’you think maybe a turtleneck?”

“Turtleneck could work. And no belt.”

“No belt,” Harry agrees.

The girls, bored by this back-and-forth, flounce gaily back into the other room. Zayn comes over to Harry, then, wrapping his arms around him and mouthing at his ear.

Harry smiles. “Hey… wanna have Greta work again tomorrow, and let me take you on a date?”

“Sure. Love to.”

“Perfect.” Harry pinches at his side. “Y’know, I can’t believe I kept a twenty-six inch waist for decades, and now I just can’t get back there.”

“Yeah, that twenty-eight inch waist, you’ve really let yourself go, babe. It’s embarrassin’.”

Harry laughs. “Your daughter ruined my girlish figure.”

“Oh, she’s _my_ daughter when she ruins your girlish figure?”

“Yeah, you heard me.”

Zayn fists his hand in Harry’s shirt, and Harry goes sweet-eyed. “Alright, I’ll see you tonight, then?”

Harry nods. “Tonight.”

 

*

 

“Should we move?” Liam says, squinting. “The sun’s gonna be right in our eyes.”

“Maybe we’ll go blind,” Amir says. “And then we can all go home.”

Louis leans over and flicks him in the shoulder. “These are great seats,” he says. “Great view of the field. Use your sunglasses.”

“I think we’re in the WAGs section,” Amir says.

Liam laughs. “I want a sweatshirt,” he says, “that says I’m a proud WAG of a Bruins dad.”

Louis smiles at him. “I might get a hot dog,” he says. “Anyone want a hot dog? A beer?”

“I’ll have a beer,” Amir says.

“You’re very funny.”

“I’ll take a beer if you’re going,” Liam says. “And a hot dog.”

Louis gets up, stretching and groaning. He’s wearing a UCLA Bruins sweatshirt he just paid forty dollars for at the stadium gift shop, hence Liam’s sweatshirt joke.

Someone who’s squeezing past legs in the row above them leans down and taps him on the shoulder. “Hey, Louis.”

Louis does a double take at him. “Oh, hey! Ahh… Ned?”

“Ted,” says Ted, with a sheepish smile, like he’s apologizing for not being named Ned.

“Shit, sorry mate.”

“No worries.”

“You’re Heidi’s dad, right?” Louis says. “Center forward?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ted grins. “Should be an exciting game, today.”

The people whose knees he’s crowding in start to peer around him in annoyance.

“Absolutely,” Louis says cheerfully. “Fuck Northwestern, let’s kill ‘em.”

Ted laughs. “Ah, you’re a trip, man. Well, good luck to Mia!”

“Good luck to Heidi,” Louis calls as he heads off down the row. He turns to Liam and Amir. “I’m a _trip_ ,” he whispers, raising his eyebrows.

“According to Ned,” Liam says.

Louis laughs. “Alright, two beers, two hot dogs. Amir, text your father and check on him, alright? ‘Cos they kick off right at one.”

“Yeah,” Amir calls after him as he heads off. He taps at his watch; _where are u_? he texts Zayn.

 _Traffic_ , Zayn replies a few moments later. _Soz_

“Traffic,” Amir says aloud.

Liam nods and slides his sunglasses down over his eyes. “It’s bad today.”

“He probably left too late.”

“Probably that too.”

Across the field, girls in royal blue jerseys start filing out of the locker room and congregating on the sideline, stretching and chatting to each other. He thinks he sees Mia, her dark hair bouncing in its ponytail as she talks to someone and practices her footwork.

“Too bad this had to be on a Wednesday,” Liam says. “Sunday wanted to come.”

“You should’ve named her Wednesday, so the game would’ve been on a Sunday.”

Liam laughs at this. “You’re in a silly mood today.”

“I’m delirious from sunstroke,” Amir says.

Louis returns a few minutes later with the two beers, two hot dogs, and a brand-new Bruins cap on.

“You’re gonna buy out the entire store,” Liam says, taking his beer.

“I got this for you, actually.” Louis sets the hot dogs down and transfers the cap from his head to Liam’s. Liam obligingly pulls it snug. “I got one for you, too, kiddo.”

“I’m good,” Amir says. “I don’t like to wear stuff on my head.”

“Why?”

“Messes up my hair.”

Louis settles back into his seat between them. “Alright, Zayn,” he says fondly.

“Good afternoon,” the announcer’s tinny voice rings out across the stadium. “Welcome to the Rose Bowl stadium, where our Bruins today will face off against the Wildcats, in all the way from Illinois. Both teams are coming into this match-up with an eight-four season record, and this game will determine who makes it into the second round for the NCAA championship, so the stakes are high here this afternoon.”

Wildcats start filing out of the locker room under the bleachers. Amir watches them go by, all stone-faced in their royal purple, ponytails pulled skin-tight.

“Speaking of Zayn,” Louis adds, “you hear back?”

“He said ‘traffic, soz.’”

“Why does he never account for the traffic?” Louis says to Liam, who shrugs.

The captains cross to the center of the field for the coin toss. Mia is still standing on the sideline, adjusting her shin guards.

“God, Mims looks young,” Liam says. “These girls all look so old and scary in comparison.”

“She’s just got to get her game face on,” Louis says. “She’s a bit nervous.”

But his leg is bouncing like he’s nervous too.

The Wildcats win the coin toss, and everyone starts filing onto the field, squinting in the sun. Mia is on right wing, and fairly close to them; as she gets in position, she catches Amir’s eye and gives him a wink. He winks back.

“They’re gonna be barreling down the right lane,” Louis says. “Testing her out. That’s what her coach said.”

“Wait, you talk to her coach?” Amir says.

“Yeah, we email.”

Liam and Amir exchange a look of amusement.

“What?” Louis says defensively. “We like to talk strategy! I do own a football team, you know!”

“We know, Dad.”

Liam stretches his arm across the back of Louis’ chair and pats him on the shoulder. Louis shrugs him off in mock-offense.

The kickoff goes by in a blur; the Wildcats tear off down the field and get stopped by a massive kick upfield from the center defender. Mia hovers, looking eager for action but apprehensive at the same time.

Amir leans back in his seat, kicking his feet up onto the steel railing in front of them and trying not to yawn. He was up half the night last night working on college applications.

Louis leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “She needs to loosen her stance,” he mutters.

“She knows,” Liam says.

“She’s stiff.”

“She’ll warm up.”

Louis eats his hot dog, looking stressed.

The Bruins midfield is scattered and ineffective — the ball comes rocketing back, the Wildcats offense driving down the field. Mia manages to get a foot on it and send it halfway back up the pitch. The three of them cheer; Amir surreptitiously takes a sip of Liam’s beer while he’s distracted.

He tries to tune out the commentator, but every time he hears ‘Tomlinson’, his ears prick automatically. (Mia lets them drop the -Malik to make play-calling easier, although it’s TOMLINSON-MALIK on the back of her jersey.)

“Defensive freshman Mia Tomlinson getting some real playtime for the first time this season… she passes upfield to forward Berit Haraldsted, who comes to UCLA via Norway…”

The ball comes back downfield again, driven by a tall and powerful offensive Wildcat. She passes to the left, and in a moment of incredibly fancy footwork, the left wing forward she passes to manages to dart past Mia for a shot on the goal —

The kick misses, but Amir is squinting at Mia, who, mid-pivot, had collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Daniels misses a shot on goal, keeper Erin Melendez prepares to punt up to the front line…”

The ball sails across the field, but Mia is still down, not moving, and no one has noticed —

“Dad,” he says aloud.

Now her teammates are realizing, and the center wing defender runs to her side, waving frantically at the sidelines. The whistle is blown. Louis leaps to his feet.

“Hang on,” Liam says, standing up too and grabbing Louis by the arm. Amir hadn’t even realized his father was leaning forward like he was about to vault over the railing and run onto the field.

Mia is trying to get up, but her coach holds her down. The whole field has taken a knee, and a hush has fallen over the crowd.

“And play has been paused as it looks like Tomlinson, number twenty-seven, is down with an injury,” the commentator’s voice rings out across the field.

The medic and her coach are helping her to her feet, gingerly. She tries to put weight on her left leg and buckles. Another coach runs into the field and takes her legs out from under her; they carry her off the field toward the locker room.

Louis moves swiftly past Amir and down the rows of seats, toward the end. People jerk their legs back as he goes by so he doesn't clip them.

Liam nudges Amir in the back. “Follow him,” he says.

Amir stands frozen for a second.

“Amir?”

“Yeah,” he says, and starts following Louis.

 

*

 

They find Mia in the locker room, her back against a locker and an ice pack on her knee. Four people are crowded around her. She looks really little like this.

“Hey,” she says when she sees them.

Louis immediately goes to her, kneeling and lifting the ice pack. It’s already swollen, and he clearly doesn’t like what he sees. He whispers something to her coach, who nods.

Amir lingers next to Liam, near the doorway. Mia catches his eye like she did before, and smiles reassuringly at him. There are tear tracks down her face.

“We need to get her to the hospital,” the medic says. “It looks bad. We’ll call an ambulance, if that’s alright with you, just so they can stabilize the leg… we don’t want to do anymore damage.”

Louis nods. “It’s definitely the knee?”

“No, Dad, I think it’s my elbow,” Mia says wryly.

Louis lets out a little breath of a laugh and squeezes her on the shoulder. He looks sort of stricken.

“Louis,” Liam calls, “you should ride with her, and I’ll take Amir in the car.”

Louis nods, and then keeps nodding past when it would be normal to stop. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s what I was gonna say. Amir?”

“Yeah?”

“Call your dad, alright? Ask him to meet us there?”

He nods. “Okay.”

Mia looks up at her coach. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, her head falling back against the lockers, dark hair standing out against the blue.

Her coach chuckles. “Oh, Mia,” she says, squeezing her shoulder. “This is so common. Happens all the time. We’ll get you patched up.”

 

*

 

“Call Zayn,” Amir mutters to his watch, once they’re in the car.

It’s hot inside; it’s been baking in a Los Angeles parking lot for the last hour. Liam immediately hits the A/C, then pulls out. In a lot full of cars, they’re the only ones leaving.

Zayn picks up. “‘Lo? I’m still five minutes out.”

“Mia’s hurt,” Amir says. “She blew her knee out.”

“She what?”

“They just put her in an ambulance, she’s on her way to Cedars with Dad, so head there instead of the school.”

“What d’you mean she blew her knee out?” Zayn says.

“I don’t know, Dad, I dunno what exactly she did.”

“Is she alright?”

“I don’t know! I mean, yeah, she’s not _dying_ or anything.”

“Shit,” Zayn says. “Alright, I’ll meet you there.”

“Alright. Bye.”

“She’s gonna be fine,” Liam says, pulling onto the main road. “Probably an ACL tear. It happens.”

“What about her career, though?” Amir says.

“We’ll just have to see.”

They spot the ambulance up ahead, then. It’s not using its sirens.

 

*

 

By the time they finally find Louis in an otherwise empty waiting room on the surgical floor, he’s already been separated from Mia, and is pacing back and forth.

“Hey,” he says, looking relieved to see them.

“So how is she?” Liam says, giving Louis a squeeze on the shoulder as he moves past him to take a seat.

Louis shrugs. “I dunno. They took her right up here so we could get some privacy, and they’ve got a nurse checking her out down the hall. They think she tore a couple different ligaments, but they don’t know what yet.”

Amir goes over and sits next to Liam, for a lack of something to do.

“She’ll need an MRI,” Louis says. His hands are on his hips, and he’s bouncing his foot.

“Wanna sit, babe? You know how these things go, they’ll probably keep us waiting a while.”

Louis shakes his head. “I can’t sit.”

“Alright, well, anyone want coffee?” Liam says.

“Maybe later. What I really want is a cigarette.”

“I could go for coffee,” Amir says.

They hear footsteps down the hall and Zayn calling out, “Louis?”

“In here,” Louis shouts back.

Zayn appears around the corner, his sunglasses on top of his head. “Hey,” he says, and strides forward to wrap Louis up in a hug.

Louis clings to him, burying his face in Zayn’s shoulder, and Zayn strokes his hair. It’s about as intimate as they ever get, anymore. When they pull apart they give each other this really long, soppy look.

Embarrassed, Amir glances sideways at Liam, who’s politely pretending to be engrossed in a _Sports Illustrated_.

“How is she?” Zayn says, finally glancing in the direction of his son.

“We don’t know,” Amir replies.

“She needs an MRI,” Louis says. “They think multiple ligament tears.”

Zayn sighs.

“In the first five minutes of the match,” Louis says. “Can you believe that shit? Just hit the pivot wrong, total freak thing…”

“She’ll be alright,” Liam says. “They can do so many things for knees now."

Louis nods. He keeps nodding at everything, like his head’s on a string.

“Too bad Niall’s already flown back,” Liam says. “He could give her some moral support.”

Louis and Zayn laugh at this.

“Zayn, coffee?” Liam says, getting to his feet.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Alright, so two coffees?”

“No, one for me too, love,” Louis says. “And get one for yourself.”

“I can’t, I’ve got that acid reflux again,” Liam says, patting his chest.

“Get a tea then.”

“You trust a hospital vending machine in Los Angeles to do a good tea?”

“Right. Get a Coke.”

“Three coffees, one Coke, got it,” Liam says, and heads off.

Zayn takes the seat on Amir’s other side. “So how’d she play before the knee explosion?”

“Good,” Louis says, still standing and bouncing. “She got a foot on the ball once, had a good save.”

“She let that forward through,” Amir says. “Right before she got hurt.”

“Oh, shit, that’s right,” Louis says. “Fuck. She’s gotta be agonizing about that.”

“She’ll have more chances,” Zayn says. “This knee shit, it ain’t a career ender like it used to be. Remember Loreto, Louis, he played for Arsenal? Blew his entire knee— ACL, MCL, meniscus — and ‘e was back like, two months later, good as new.”

Louis keeps doing the nodding thing. “You got cigarettes?” he says to him.

“Yeah,” Zayn says. “Want one?”

“Yeah. Not right now, though, after they give us some news.”

The three of them are silent for a moment. Louis keeps pacing.

“Hey kid,” Zayn says to Amir, sort of perfunctorily.

Amir laughs. “Hey Dad.”

“How’s your day been?”

“Alright.”

“He’s been working on his college applications,” Louis says, sounding pleased.

Amir turns to him, feeling caught out. “How d’you even _know_ that?”

Louis laughs. “Like it’s normal for you to come into me room at midnight to ask me what your Social Security number is, and what my highest level of education was?”

“Surprised to hear you were awake at midnight,” Zayn says.

“Well, you know, Masterchef comes on so late now, and Payno likes to keep up with that.”

“I like to do what?” Liam says, coming around the corner with the coffee.

“Watch Masterchef,” Louis says.

Liam hands out the cups and, with an old person groan, sits back down next to Amir. “Oh, yeah, I do like my Masterchef.”

Zayn squeezes Amir’s shoulder. “So where are you applying?”

He glances down at his hands, fiddling with his rings. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Knowing him, we’ll find out after he’s been accepted and already agreed to go somewhere,” Louis says.

“What’s wrong with that?” Amir shoots back.

Louis gives him a smile. “Nothing, we just love you, and we’re interested in your life. That alright?”

Before he can answer, a blonde doctor comes down the hall toward them, clearing her throat. “I’m looking for Mr Tomlinson?”

Louis wheels around to her. “That’s me.”

She comes forward and shakes his hand. “Hi there, I’m Dr Minka Ledbetter, I’m an orthopedic surgeon working on your daughter's case. We want to go ahead and take Mia down for an MRI.”

“Can I say hi to her before you do?” Zayn says.

"Are you family?"

Zayn bristles. “I’m her dad.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, go ahead, she’s in room four-twenty. I’ll be back in a while to go over her films with you, but I have to attend to another patient, so if you’ll excuse me...”

The doctor goes off briskly in the direction of the elevators.

“Guess that’s all the information we get, then?” Louis says, glancing after her back in annoyance and starting down the hall to Mia.

“Hey, I can wait here,” Liam offers. “I don’t wanna crowd her.”

“No, no, come in,” Louis calls over his shoulder. They all follow after him like lambs after a shepherd. “She’ll be glad to see all of us.”

Mia’s alone in her room; she’s changed into joggers, and her leg is up in a sling. There’s still dirt smeared on her cheek from when she fell. Amir pointedly doesn’t look at her damaged knee, which is wrapped in elastic bandages and ice.

He can’t stand to see her injured, he’s never been able to stomach it. Once as a kid she took a ball to the face, and her teeth cut into her lip; when she came off the sidelines, unconcerned and grinning through the blood, Amir started crying hysterically.

“Hey guys,” she says. “You see I’m in room four twenty?”

They all laugh.

Louis drags a chair over to Mia’s bedside. “You feelin’ any better?” he says, sitting backwards astride it.

“Yeah, they gave me some drugs, I can’t really feel it anymore,” she says. To Zayn: “Hi Dad.”

“Hi, sweets,” Zayn says.

“You see me die out there?”

He laughs. “Nah, I was stuck in traffic.”

“Oh, fashionably late as usual?”

“Sorry, Yas…”

“I’m kidding, it’s fine, I’m honestly glad you didn’t see it.”

“It was pretty brutal,” Amir says.

Mia gives him a knowing smile, one that indicates she knows he's worried, knows he’s hedging about it, but isn't going to give him a hard time. He suddenly feels guilty for how much he’s been shutting her out the past couple weeks. Nobody knows him like she does.

She turns to Louis. “I let Daniels in,” she says, clearly annoyed with herself. “Did you see that? I let Daniels in, I spun around, and my fucking knee exploded.”

He starts stroking her hair. “I know.”

“It was like the worst possible thing I could’ve done in that game.”

“Don’t think about it, alright? We’re gonna get you better, get you rehabbed, and then we can talk strategy.”

Mia’s visibly upset, but she nods. Louis makes a fist and shows it to her. She laughs, then makes a fist back at him.

“D’you know what the score is?” she says.

“I can text your coach,” Louis offers.

“No, don’t bother her… I’ll just check Twitter…”

Liam takes Amir by the shoulders and gently guides him to the side; Amir glances over and sees two nurses coming into the room behind them, pushing a gurney.

“Hi,” the female nurse says, smiling. “We’ve gotta take Mia down to her MRI now, sorry guys.”

“No problem,” Louis says, getting up. “Can someone come get us when she’s done?”

“Yeah, sure,” the male nurse says.

They all file awkwardly out of the room as the nurses hoist Mia up and swing her onto the gurney.

“Remember you can’t move,” Zayn yells from the hallway. “In the MRI, you can’t move or it fucks it up!”

“Thanks, Dad,” Mia calls, laughing. “I’ve seen movies.”

“I’m just sayin’...”

 

*

 

Louis gets more and more agitated the longer they have to wait. When he finally stops pacing and sits down, Liam slings an arm firmly around his shoulders, which seems to calm him, but then Liam has to get up and go coordinate with security downstairs about dealing with some paps who have congregated in the parking lot. So Louis pops back up again. The whole time, Zayn is idly flicking through Twitter on his phone, pretending he’s not worried.

“Hey,” Amir says to no one in particular. “Hypothetically, what would be a good way to, um, get over stage fright, like before a big piano audition?”

Zayn glances up; he and Louis exchange a look of parental curiosity.

“You could join a band,” Louis says. “Or what’s it called when it’s jazz… a combo? That’d get you more comfortable with performing live.”

“I don’t know anyone my age who plays jazz, though…”

“Well, you don’t have to play with people your age.”

“But where would I meet, like, random older jazz musicians?” Amir says, confused.

“I can find you some people, introduce you to them.”

“Really?”

Louis snorts and jerks his chin at Zayn. “It’s like the kid met me last week or somethin’.”

Zayn grins. “What’re you auditioning for?” he says to Amir.

“Nothing,” he says, reddening. “I said hypothetically.”

“I’m guessin’ you’ll tell us more when you know more?” Louis says.

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“Alright,” Zayn says. “We’re here to help, though, remember.”

“I know,” Amir says, twisting his rings some more.

Liam returns to them, then, and settles back into his chair. “Dealt with the paps,” he says. “And I’ve got the nanny picking up the boys.”

Louis exhales. “You’re the best, love, thanks.”

Zayn makes eye contact with Louis and slips his pack of Marlboros slightly up out of his breast pocket, raising an eyebrow at him. Amir wonders if he’s maybe a little subconsciously put out by Liam being _the best_ , and trying to win Louis’ attention back with nicotine.

“Yeah,” Louis says. “Let’s get in a quick smoke.”

“Be careful,” Liam says as they head toward the hall. “There could always be one straggler left lurking, you know how it is.”

“We’ll keep an eye out,” Zayn says. “Hide under an awning.”

 

*

 

Outside, there’s a strange energy in the air — heat lightning in the distance and low clouds. They find a secluded spot in a courtyard and light up, passing the lighter between each other without needing to speak.

Louis takes a long, hard drag and exhales. “I’ve really had it with this fucking jinx on our kids,” he mutters.

Zayn laughs. “Same.”

“I know this is shit that just happens, but…”

“She’ll be alright, Lou.”

“Yeah. It’s just she worked so hard for this, and she’s probably gonna be out the rest of the season. That’s ‘ard, mentally.”

Zayn exhales smoke. “Maybe it’ll be good for her. Give her a bit of time to regroup.”

“She’s not gonna see it that way," Louis says, a little too sharply. He knows he's really talking about himself, here. He suspect Zayn knows so too. 

“I know.” Zayn backs up a few steps and glances down as he settles onto a bench against the wall.

Louis follows him and settles next to him. After a moment, he snuggles up into Zayn’s armpit. Zayn wraps his arm around him and presses a kiss to the top of his head.

“Could still be paps,” Louis murmurs.

“Fuck ‘em,” Zayn says, with a surprising amount of edge in his voice. “I’m allowed to still care for you.”

Louis heaves a sigh, letting his eyes close. “Yeah.”

“Hey, I’ve been thinking about something…”

Louis’ chest gets warm with anxious curiosity. “Yeah?”

“If I do join up with you guys for this tour… let’s not announce it. Let’s do it like a surprise thing. Like I just walk out, boom.”

Louis laughs. “That Harry’s idea?”

“Naw, mine!”

“It’s just very dramatic.”

“Well, I like a bit of drama,” Zayn says. “They’d _freak_ , though, imagine. And then my fans’d run and sell out every remaining date, ‘cos they haven’t seen me live in ages.”

“Alright, that bit came from Harry, don’t lie.”

“Yeah, guilty. The surprise idea was mine though.”

“I don’t like the implication that we’re not gonna sell out our tour without your help, boyo.”

Zayn laughs. “Fine, how about this — we do some merch the five of us, but we wait ‘til the first date to reveal it, so everyone goes crazy buyin’ it.”

“That’s smart, yeah. I like that.” Louis fists his hand in Zayn’s shirt. He smells familiar, that mingled scent of cigarettes and cologne. “Are you really gonna come back?”

“Feel like I might as well, right?”

“Aww, such enthusiasm…”

Zayn strokes Louis’ hair. “Nah, it feels right, I guess. Feels like full circle.”

“Good.” Louis lets himself relax a small amount. Now that the adrenaline is fading somewhat, he’s getting sleepy in the humid afternoon. He takes another drag to keep himself alert. “D’you, um… ever think about when the kids were little? Been thinking about that a lot lately…”

“Oh, all the time,” Zayn says. “Been feelin’ my age.”

“Me too.”

“That was a nice time.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs.

Zayn clears his throat. “I’m sorry,” he says, ashing onto the pavement.

Louis sits up and looks at him. He has a sort of faraway, guilty look in his dark eyes. “For what?”

“If you felt lonely back then,” Zayn says, “or overwhelmed…”

He shrugs. “‘Course I did, I was twenty-five with no band and two little babies, an ocean away from me family.”

“Sort o’ felt like you were fairly bitter about it, sometimes.”

“Yeah. I tried not to be.”

“I let it be on you,” Zayn says. “The hard shit, when they were really little. Doctors, school, footie practice, all Mia’s immigration shit, that boring fuckin’ day-to-day, just totin’ ‘em around from place to place.”

“It wasn’t like I was a single dad… You did help me, and you were working...”

“You were, too, or you wanted to be. And I know you never really got off the ground. And I know why that is.”

Louis looks down, his cheeks getting hot with embarrassment. “They didn’t have anyone else, the kids,” he mutters. “And I wasn’t gonna let nannies raise ‘em, have ‘em turn into little serial killers.”

“I appreciate that,” Zayn says. “You did great. Look how good they turned out.”

“Yeah, they’re alright, when they’re not gettin’ in car accidents and smashing their knees to bits.”

Zayn laughs. “I mean it, y’know.”

“Thanks, mate. But that’s down to both of us, wiv help from Harry and Payno, so.”

“Takes a village.”

“Aye.”

“Funny how we both ended up with four,” Zayn says. “But not with each other.”

Louis nods.

“Wouldn’t’ve minded four with you, if we could’ve worked shit out… or at least the three…”

Louis thinks of his miscarriage, of their third child that never was. Zayn’s lost exactly as many kids as he’s now got — four losses, four children.

“You think we’d have had _four_ kids, if we stayed together?” he says.

“Yeah, why not?” Zayn says in that blithe way of his.

Louis snorts. It’s probably a fair point, considering how the first two happened, how it used to be between them, how hard it always was for Louis not to just fall in bed with him.

“We make good kids, is all I’m saying,” Zayn adds.

“We do,” Louis murmurs. “No, we do. I’m just distracted, I’m on me worried dad thing.”

Zayn lifts his cigarette again and inhales. “I really think they’ll both be fine,” he says.

“Me too.”

“I wonder if there’s anythin’ we can do for her, like donate blood or something…”

He laughs. “I don’t think she needs any blood, love.”

“I dunno. Just in case.”

“You’re cute.”

Zayn smiles. “Me?”

“Yeah, you,” Louis flirts.

“I just feel shitty sitting around.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Zayn blows out some smoke into the late afternoon air, then tosses his butt into the ashtray next to them. “Anyway, I just meant to say that I've got my regrets,” he says. “When it comes to you and me.”

“I do too,” Louis admits.

Zayn’s dark eyes flick over him. “Like what?”

Louis nuzzles back into his shoulder, and Zayn wraps his arms around him.

“Never trusting you,” Louis murmurs.

“I wasn’t, like, the most trustable guy.”

“No. But no trust eats away at things.”

“Yeah.”

“‘S’like marriage termites.”

Zayn laughs; Louis can feel the vibration in his chest. “We ‘ad marriage termites.”

“We had our good times, though...”

“We did. I just wonder if, like…”

He stops himself. Louis glances up at him. “What?”

“If we’d’ve been better off not trying to make it work right away,” Zayn says. “Just been two single dads for a bit. Figured ourselves out before we jumped into things. Maybe we could’ve made it work.”

“I wouldn’t‘ve stayed single,” Louis says. “I’m sorry. I’m so shit at being alone.”

“Wouldn’t’ve waited for me, huh?”

“In the state we were in? It’d be a big ask.”

“All hypothetical anyway,” Zayn says. “We are where we are.”

“I don’t mind where we are too much.”

“Me neither.” Zayn is quiet for a while, then says, “Hey… you know what I wanna do this week, before Ramadan starts? Smoke a huge fucking blunt. You down?”

Louis shivers from how good that sounds. “Always.”

 

*

 

Louis and Zayn have only just returned, smelling like smoke, when Sunday comes around the corner with two Bruins in tow.

They’re both hard-eyed, well-muscled girls, sort of scary, but they smile when they see everyone assembled.

“Hey sweets,” Liam says to Sunday.

“Hi.” Sunday jerks her thumb behind her. “I found these two downstairs, they want info on Mia.”

“Hi,” chirps the blonde Bruin. “I’m Samantha, this is Audrey.”

“We hustled over here after the game,” Audrey says.

Sunday takes a seat next to Amir, who hands her a battered old copy of _Time_ magazine that has a picture of a mounted police officer on the cover. “Found a horse for you to look at,” he says helpfully.

She snorts. “Thanks.”

“She’s doing fine,” Louis says to the soccer girls. “I’m sorry, though, loves, we still don’t really know anything. She’s actually still in her MRI.”

“Oh, shoot,” Samantha says. “Yeah, we just wanted to know what the outlook on the knee was. The rest of the girls sent us as a, like… what’s the word?”

“Oh, I know what you mean,” Audrey says. “It’s like French, but also Latin?”

“Envoy?” Amir says.

“Yes!” Samantha points to him. “Envoy.”

“I’ll text Coach Hewitt when we’ve got a diagnosis,” Louis promises.

“Okay,” Audrey says. “Give Mia love from the team? And let her know that we won? I’m sure she’d like to know.”

“Will do. What was the score?”

“Four-two, us.”

“Hey! Nice job.”

“Thanks!” says Samantha.

They hurry off down the hall, almost crashing into a nurse who’s wheeling along some poor guy with two broken legs.

“Her teammates must like her,” Liam remarks. “Came all the way down here.”

Louis smiles. “Yeah.”

 

*

 

They’re allowed to see Mia a few minutes later. She’s back in bed, Dr Ledbetter at her side, showing her something on a tablet and pointing at it with a stylus.

Mia looks up. “Hi,” she says. “So they decided they’re gonna have to amputate my leg.”

Zayn jerks visibly in Amir’s peripheral vision.

“ _Joking_ , Dad.”

“I know,” Zayn says, not too believably.

The doctor laughs. “Nothing quite that drastic,” she says. “But we want to — Chris, can you come in here?”

Another doctor ducks in from the hallway; they all reshuffle themselves. “Hey there,” he says. “Crowded in here.”

“Hers is the MRI I showed you,” Ledbetter says. “I’m just letting the family know what we’ve decided on as far as immediate intervention.”

“Sawing the whole leg off,” Mia supplies.

“Mims,” Louis says sternly, but Amir and Sunday laugh.

Mia leans over. “Sunday!” she says, beaming. “I didn’t see you.”

Sunday pokes her head out from behind Liam. “Hi! Sorry. I’ve been here.”

Ledbetter clears her throat. “So, Mia has a complete tear of the ACL, and a grade two tear of the MCL.”

Unhappy silence descends over the room.

“Shit,” Zayn sighs.

Louis squeezes past them and goes over to Mia’s bed, gingerly perching next to her. She leans against his shoulder like a little kid.

“We’d like to intervene surgically in the next hour,” Ledbetter continues. “Mia has already agreed, and we have an OR ready for her.”

“Wait,” Louis says, putting his hands up. “Hang on, hang on. First off, I thought you waited to operate on an ACL.”

“That was before,” Chris calls from the doorway. “Now we — ‘scuse me, guys —“ He sidles his way into the room and turns on a large monitor behind Ledbetter, then takes her tablet and taps at the screen a few times. An MRI image pops up on the monitor; Mia’s ruined knee.

“Now, especially in the case of athletes, we use microbots to do some initial repairs,” Chris says. “Then when the swelling goes down, we go in for the full reconstruction.”

“I want a second opinion,” Louis says.

“Dad,” Mia whispers, putting a hand on his arm. “Dr Chris _is_ the second opinion.”

Dr Ledbetter nods.

“Who are you, sorry?” Louis says to Chris, rather abruptly.

Chris smiles. “I’m an orthopedic surgeon as well, and I actually specialize in sports medicine. This is a technique I use often.”

“Chris is the personal physician for several of the Lakers,” Ledbetter says. “He just happened to be in doing rounds today, but we’re lucky to have him consulting on this.”

Louis glances back at Mia. “I want to talk to your coach.”

“Dad…”

“The longer we wait,” Chris says, “the less effective this intervention becomes, and the more range of motion Mia loses.”

“But what about these horror stories I’ve read,” Louis challenges, getting that stubborn glint in his eye. “About microbots glitching, gettin’ interferin’ signals, going crazy and just eating holes in people.”

“I can assure you that’s vanishingly rare,” Ledbetter says. “That’s really only happened in developing countries, in desperate situations, where the technology is being used without all safety precautions in place.”

“Dad,” Mia whispers, “I’m eighteen, okay? And I already agreed to the surgery. Look…”

She peels the bandage back and shows him a large Sharpeed black X on her swollen knee. Louis’ jaw tightens.

“So they don’t amputate the wrong one,” she jokes.

“For fuck’s sake, Yasmeen,” Zayn says.

Mia grins. “Amir thinks it’s funny.”

Zayn shoots Amir a look.

“Thanks, throw me under the bus,” Amir says, and Sunday laughs.

“Mr Tomlinson, I can walk you through every step of the surgery,” Chris says, gesturing to the monitor behind him.

“Yeah, let’s do that,” Louis says, not too pleasantly.

“Dad, come on, be nice to Chris,” Mia says.

“I’m being perfectly nice to Chris!”

Chris lets out an awkward little laugh. “So,” he says, taking a stylus out of the pocket on his scrubs, “first we use local anesthesia to numb her below the waist, then we make a half-inch incision right here…”

 

*

 

Louis doesn’t want to leave, when the doctors politely kick them out and head down to go scrub in. He keeps squeezing Mia’s shoulder and studying the MRI.

“Dad,” Mia says gently, when Liam has come over to try and physically guide Louis out of the room. Louis is still resisting, hanging onto the hospital bed. “I’ll be fine. I’m not even going under.”

“I know!”

Zayn comes over to help Liam; together, they manage to wrest Louis away from Mia’s bedside.

“Good luck, Yas,” Zayn calls over his shoulder. “We’ll be here when you get out.”

Amir lingers while everyone files out. Sunday says, “You coming?” and he says, “One sec.”

Mia looks at him curiously.

“Can we get just a second alone?” he says to the nurse who’s fussing with her bandages. “It’ll be fast.”

The nurse nods and slips out of the room. Perks of being rich and famous. Amir comes over and sits by her like their dad did.

Mia eyes him.

“I wanted to tell you, ‘cos I figured you’d be happy about it… I’m applying to Julliard,” he says. “And a couple safeties, but mostly Julliard.”

Her face lights up. “Fuck yeah, you are!”

Amir looks down at the blanket, his face getting hot. “And, uh… I had to write an essay.”

“Yeah? What on?”

“I had a couple options. I picked, um… here.” He flicks his watch in the direction of hers. “Just read it, I just sent you it.”

Mia eyes him, but says nothing and flicks her watch display down to start reading.

“The person I admire most,” she says aloud.

“It’s just a first draft,” he adds, his face heating up.

Her eyes go back and forth, scanning. “Oh, wait. Noo… did you pick _me_?” She looks up at him, beaming. “This is about me?”

Amir picks at the blanket. “Maybe.”

Mia opens her arms. “C’mere, c’mere.”

He goes to her, and she squeezes him tight.

“Thanks, Meer,” Mia whispers.

“I hope the robots don’t eat your leg,” he whispers.

She laughs, sounding like she’s a little choked up. “God, for real, what is Dad’s problem? He made them run through the entire surgery like five times!”

“He’s just worried about you. He’s been blown since we got here.” Amir clears his throat and pulls back from her. “Hey, I’m sorry I was so pissed about, um, you know. You telling me what you told me.”

“No, I’m sorry, like I said before... I just didn’t want to know it alone anymore.”

“I get it. I had a good talk with Dad, so… he knows you know, by the way.”

She sighs. “Shit.”

“I told him you forgive him.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“But you’re not mad anymore,” Amir says. “Right?”

Mia smiles at him. It’s a loving smile, but sympathetic in a way that gets on his nerves. “You’re still such a little kid, sometimes...”

“Fuck off! You said you weren’t.”

“No, I guess I’m not.”

Behind them, someone clears their throat. Amir turns; it’s the nurse from before, leaning in the doorway.

“Sorry,” she says, “I really have to take Mia down now.”

“Alright,” Amir says, getting up. “Hey… don’t die.”

Mia laughs and salutes him. “I’ll do my best.”

 

*

 

The surgery’s only supposed to take an hour, and Louis doesn’t want to leave the hospital to go get food or anything, so they all just retire back to the waiting room, staring at their watches or the walls.

Harry shows up about ten minutes in, strolling down the hall like a rock star, escorted by his own security. “Hey there,” he says to them, smiling. “Managed to escape.”

His tone is way too congenial. Next to Amir, Liam sits up straighter and gives Harry a ‘read the room’ kind of look, but Harry misses it.

“Hey, babe,” Zayn says, and Sunday and Amir wave.

Harry settles into the row opposite Amir, crossing one leg over the other and raising his eyebrows. “ _That_ wasn’t very energetic.”

“Sorry, would you like a parade?” Louis snaps at him.

An awkward silence descends. Amir glances at Sunday, who’s catty-corner from him. Her eyes have gone wide.

Harry gives Louis a thin smile. “I realize you’re worried, but it’s not life or death, is it?”

“Just my kid in surgery for a possibly career-ending injury, that’s all.”

“I’m aware of what’s going on, Zayn texted me.”

“Then don’t waltz in here with a goofy smile on your face and ask me to pay attention to you!”

Harry’s mouth falls open; Zayn gets a look on his face like he wants to vanish into thin air.

“Dad, chill,” Amir says.

“He-ey,” Liam exclaims, getting to his feet and clapping his hands together. “Anyone want another coffee?”

“Yeah, let’s go get coffee,” Zayn says, and he gets up and speeds down the hall faster than Amir has ever seen him move.

Louis sets his magazine down. “Sorry,” he says to Harry. “I’m sorry. I appreciate you bein’ here, that was unnecessary.”

“I can leave,” Harry offers.

“No, Christ, don’t, I don’t want you to.”

“I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

“I like it unlightened. I want everyone else miserable, it makes me feel better.”

“Oh, that’s fun,” Amir says.

Louis laughs. “How was your day?” he says to Harry.

“Brutally boring,” Harry says. “Absolute snooze fest.” He looks over at Sunday. “Hey Sunday.”

“Hi Harry.”

“How was school?”

“Uh, brutally boring, absolute snoozefest,” she says in an imitation of his accent, and he chuckles. “But I’ve stopped getting questioned about Amir’s incident, so that’s nice.”

Amir rubs at his half-beard. “My _incident…_ ”

“Whatever you want to call it,” she says.

“Let’s call it Jason’s incident, yeah?”

“Whoever’s incident,” Sunday says, rolling her eyes.

Amir nudges Louis. “I’m hungry,” he says.

Louis glances at his watch again. “Alright,” he says. “Let’s just grab something downstairs. Anyone else want anything?”

“I’d like a salad,” Harry says.

“You want a hospital cafeteria salad?” Louis says, lifting his eyebrows as he gets up and pats his arse for his wallet.

Harry considers it, then laughs. “Never mind. Crisps or something.”

In the sad, fluorescent-lit hallway, they find Liam and Zayn hovering near a coffee vending machine, looking awkward.

“Oh, can we come back now?” Liam says. “Is the shouting over?”

“No _shouting_ ,” Louis scoffs, hitting the elevator call button. “Harry was on my nerves and I snapped at him, that’s it.”

Liam comes over and presses a coffee cup into his hands. “It’s all gonna be fine.”

Louis nods. “I know, love.” His leg is bouncing again. “Where’s this fucking elevator?”

“You literally pressed the button two seconds ago,” Amir says.

“Are you going for food?” Zayn says. “Can I get something?”

“What d’you want?”

Zayn shrugs. “Sandwich or something?”

“Alright, I’ll grab you one.”

Amir glances at Zayn’s wrist, which has a pearly Rolex glittering on it. “New watch, Dad?”

Zayn follows his gaze. “Why, you like it?”

“Yeah, it’s nice.”

Zayn starts taking it off, then grabs Amir’s wrist, slips his iWatch off, and puts the Rolex on him in its place.

“Wait,” Amir says. “You’re just gonna give me it?"

“Harry got it as a wrap party gift, he doesn’t like the color and I don’t like how the strap fits,” Zayn says. “Take it.”

Amir looks over at Louis, who’s standing with an arm around Liam’s waist while Liam strokes his hair. He shrugs. “You should have a nice watch, now. You’re nearly grown.”

“Thanks,” Amir says to Zayn, who smiles.

 

*

 

He’s still admiring how it looks on his wrist as they move down the line in the cafeteria. Louis keeps dawdling and grabbing random shit: hard-boiled eggs, four kinds of sandwiches, snacks.

“Dad,” Amir says. “You could feed like ten people with that.”

“Well, your dad and Harry are picky, and Liam didn’t say if he wanted anythin’, but I’m sure he does. He always does this to me, he doesn’t want to impose, so then he’s just starving to death… What d’you want?”

Amir shows him the wrap on his tray.

“That’s it?”

“I’m not that hungry.”

“You’re gonna be hungry,” Louis says. “You skipped breakfast.”

“No, I had toast.”

“Toast doesn’t have nutrients.”

“Dad,” Amir says, exasperated.

A woman on line behind them with a soft wrist cast peers around him, lifting her eyebrows.

“Sorry,” Louis says to her, and keeps moving.

He pays for their food with a swipe of his wrist, and they head into the atrium cafeteria to sit down. On the walkways criss-crossing above them, Amir can see doctors walking by in their scrubs, chatting to each other.

“You need a link on that taken out,” Louis says, pointing at his wrist before he bites into his sandwich. “You got me and Zayn’s dainty little wrists, sorry.”

Amir jiggles his wrist around; the watch slides up and down his arm. “I’ll have to go old school and start carrying a phone again.”

“That’s what all the fancy blokes do,” Louis says. “Don’t wear that every day, though, you’re gonna get mugged. Eat your wrap.”

Amir picks his wrap up off the sad plastic tray. “No one gets mugged in Calabasas.”

Louis shakes his head. “I know. I really failed you kids. No education on the streets.”

“We’ll manage.”

They eat for a while in silence, people-watching. There’s an indoor waterfall on the wall across from them, and the burbling sound of it is drowning out most of the conversation of the other diners. Amir tries to read their lips. He thinks he sees a woman say to another woman sitting across from her, “They removed his _whole-ass_ colon.”

“Hey,” Amir says.

Louis glances up at him.

“I wanted to tell you something…”

“Yeah?” Louis says, clearly nervous.

“It’s not bad,” Amir hurries to say.

“Oh, alright.”

Amir looks down at the watch, fiddling with it and running his fingers along the diamond-studded face. “I’m kind of seeing Evan?”

Louis takes a moment to respond. “Like dating?”

“Like just talking.”

“What’s talking involve, now?” Louis says. “Sorry, I haven’t dated in a while.”

Amir laughs. “Like we’ve been hanging out more just the two of us, and texting a lot…”

“That why he was over late last night?”

“Nothing happened,” Amir says. “We were just talking.”

Evan did kiss him, right before he left — their first serious business kiss. They were alone in the foyer, and he just went for it, lifting Amir onto his tiptoes.

Louis smiles at him. “Alright,” he teases.

“Da-ad…”

“I’m just giving you a hard time. So… you need birth control?”

“Dad!”

“It’s a completely non-judgmental question!”

“Still!”

“I’m just asking.”

“We’re actually going kind of, like. You know.” Amir gestures. “Slow.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Louis says softly. “He nice to you?”

He rolls his eyes. “‘Course he’s nice to me, Dad, he’s my best friend...”

“Cut the eyeroll, I’m only looking out for you.”

“I know. I just wanted, like, to tell you about it. ‘Cos you said I don’t tell you stuff, and I should… so this is me telling you stuff.”

Louis smiles at him. “I do appreciate that, kiddo, thanks.”

Amir smiles back. “Fanks,” he mimics.

Louis shakes his head, laughing. “Stop,” he mutters, picking his sandwich back up. “From my own children…”

 

*

 

Amir and Sunday are deeply engrossed in a game of online Scrabble when Dr. Chris comes back to fetch them.

“Surgery went great,” he says cheerily.

“Fantastic,” Louis says, getting up and tossing his magazine aside. “Can we see her?”

“Yeah, but let’s keep it to just a couple people… she’s pretty drowsy from the pain meds.”

“You and Zayn go, then,” Liam says to Louis, who nods.

Zayn gets to his feet, stretching, and he and Louis follow the doctor down the hall.

“There’s no way syzygy is a word,” Sunday mutters.

“Look it up,” Amir replies.

“Dad,” Sunday says to Liam, “is _syzygy_ a word?”

Liam blinks at her. “Sorry?”

“I don’t know what it _means_ , but it’s a word,” Amir says. “The game wouldn’t accept it if it wasn’t a word, you sore loser.”

“You’re the one who force quits a match every time I get a bunch of points!”

“That’s just strategy!”

Harry yawns. “Liam, you finish that tuna sandwich?”

“Nah,” Liam says, and hands him the second half.

“Sick,” Harry says appreciatively.

 

*

 

Mia’s dozing when they creep in, but she hears them and wakes up. She lolls her head over on the pillow and smiles dreamily at them; Louis whispers “hey” and goes over to sit by her.

Zayn hovers on the other side of her bed. Her leg is elevated again, wrapped in bandages. He can see a dark bruise where it’s beginning to bloom and creep up her thigh.

“Dad,” Mia says to him, sounding stoned. “Good news, they didn’t saw my leg off.”

Louis chuckles. Zayn reaches down and strokes her hair. “Good.”

“How d’you feel?” Louis says.

She shrugs. “Tired. Sore. It doesn’t hurt that bad, though.”

“Good,” Louis says. “So, you’re gonna be on crutches for a while…”

“Yeah.”

“You can come home and stay with us for a few weeks,” Louis says. “Do your lectures remotely, maybe? ‘Cos you’re not gonna be able to get around campus, and you’re gonna have another surgery soon.”

Mia lets out a sigh. “Yeah. I figured. What about, um… what about the team?”

“I talked to your coach,” Louis says. “You’ve been put on the injured list. You can take the winter to rehab, and try to be back by spring season.”

Mia’s face falls. Zayn moves his hand to her shoulder, squeezing it, the thin fabric of her hospital gown bunching between his fingers.

“It’s not fair,” she says. “I’m only gonna get these four years. You know I’m not good enough to go pro… this isn’t fair.”

“That’s just life, baby,” Louis says. “You’ve still got three and a half. Let’s get you healed and make the best of it.”

She inhales. “Yeah.”

“You’ve got us to help you out,” Zayn says.

Mia gives him a loopy smile. “My dads… Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck...”

“‘Scuse me,” Zayn exclaims, while Louis laughs. “Who?”

“They watched those Saturday mornings, when they were kids,” Louis says. “Remember? Those American cartoons. Looney Tunes."

“Ahh, a bit,” Zayn says. “Saturday morning wasn’t really my domain.”

“No, Dad usually got up with us,” Mia says, patting Louis on the arm.

“Was always surprised how early Louis got up for you kids,” Zayn says with a wry smile. “He wasn’t exactly Mr Early Bird before you two came on the scene.”

Louis smiles back. “Mims didn’t encourage a lie-in…. always up and at ‘em at six sharp, she was. ‘Daddy, Daddy, breakfast, Daddy. Daddy, waffles.’”

Mia laughs. “Hey, could you get me some ice chips?”

“Yeah, be right back,” Louis says, slipping off her bed and heading into the hall.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Zayn says to her.

Mia looks up at him, her eyes steely. “Hey… I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Yeah?”

“I talked to Amir... I know you know I know.”

Zayn’s heart drops into his gut, and he goes lightheaded.

“And now you know I know you know I know,” she continues.

“Yasmeen…”

“I just want to clear the air,” Mia says. “I like the truth.”

Zayn swallows back a sick feeling lurching up. He hates when she looks at him like this, with Louis' exact eyes. “I never wanted you to know,” he whispers.

“It’s okay.”

“It isn’t.”

“I know it isn’t. But I’m past it.”

Mia reaches up for his hand; he takes hers. They stay motionless for a moment, palms clasped, like they’re sealing something.

“Just don’t do that shit to Harry,” she says. Her voice is hard and flat, and the sound of it bites into him. “Please. Alright?”

“Yasmeen, I wouldn’t.”

“Okay.”

Zayn clears his throat. “I said this to your brother, but, uh. Don’t let Louis know you know.”

“I wouldn’t,” Mia says.

“Okay.”

Their hands slip apart from each other.

“I’m really proud of you, y’know,” Zayn says. “Of who you’ve become. I really am.”

Mia gives him a smile, her eyes glittering. “Thanks, Dad.”

Just like that, the dynamic between them is flipped back to child and parent.

They hear footsteps behind them, and both turn.

“Ice,” Louis says as he comes over, handing Mia the cup. “Y’know, I think you’re allowed to have a bit of food now, if you like.”

“Nah, I’m too nauseous,” she says.

Zayn is nauseated himself, after their conversation. He drags a chair over and sits beside her bed.

“You guys don’t have to sit with me,” she says. “I might fall asleep.”

“We’ll hang ‘til you do,” Louis says.

Mia laughs. “I’m not gonna be able to shake you for a while, am I?”

“Oh no,” Louis says, grinning. “I’m your service dog, now. Get used to me ‘til we get that knee back in order.”

 

*

 

Sunday takes Amir home in her car so Mia can stretch her leg out across the backseat of Liam’s Range Rover. The sun is on its way down by then, sinking gently into the fiery orange horizon as they drive home west.

Liam drives manually, because he’s afraid the self-driving might be too jerky and bump Mia’s knee around. He goes five miles below the speed limit on the freeway, infuriating everyone else on the road, and starts braking about a mile before he needs to. Louis finds this so sweet that he can’t help wanting to hold Liam’s hand, but they’re both firmly on the wheel, so he settles for resting it on his thigh instead.

“How you doing back there, killer?” Liam says when they’re about halfway home.

Mia lets out a stoned little chuckle. “Fine,” she says. “Just want to pass out on the couch.”

“Almost home,” Louis says, sing-songy.

“We’ll put on some cricket,” Liam says. “That always puts you to sleep.”

Mia groans. “The _worst_.”

“I’ll put on cricket and play lo-fi hip hop beats to study to,” Liam jokes.

“I’m gonna go past sleep and straight into a coma,” Mia says.

Liam laughs.

 

CALABASAS, NOVEMBER 13, 2034

Mia temporarily moves back into her old room at the Calabasas house; they all spend a grumbly afternoon moving the boxes in there into her walk-in closet so she can get around on her crutches.

Amir gets bored of helping after about ten minutes, has a seat on the floor and starts going through a box of old photos.

He finds a Polaroid of Zayn and Louis outside a courthouse, mid-laughter about something. Zayn’s holding baby Mia, who’s dressed up nice, and Louis has his hand clutched around a few pieces of paper, a gold band shining on his finger.  You can tell he’s pregnant, but not very.

Amir realizes with a jolt that it’s him Louis is pregnant with, and that this must be from their wedding day. They look so young, and a bit shell-shocked, like they can’t quite believe what they’ve done.

“Dad,” he says, laughing and holding it up. “You wore trackies and a sweatshirt to get married in?”

Louis comes out of the walk-in closet, brushing his hands on his jeans, and leans over to look at the photo. He starts laughing, too. “Gimme a break, I was up the spout! My nice stuff didn’t fit right!”

“He would’ve worn trackies and a sweatshirt anyway,” Liam yells from the closet. Louis gives him the finger.

The next day, Mia's team sends her a massive bouquet of sunflowers, and Brynn brings by some of her stuff from their room the day after her first surgery. Amir is the one to get the door for her — he awkwardly takes the pink Urban Outfitters bag full of chargers, toiletries and protein supplements while Brynn smiles at him like they’re sharing a secret.

It’s not as fun having Mia home as he thought it would be. She’s in a shit mood for the most part, either in her room doing homework while watching streamed versions of her lectures or clomping up and down the stairs on her crutches so she doesn’t lose muscle tone. And then Ramadan starts, which puts her and Amir more on edge, especially in a house where everyone else is eating and drinking whenever they like.

All things considered, Amir is relieved to escape to Zayn and Harry’s for the weekend. Harry takes him along to one of those paint-while-you drink-wine-classes — an upscale version that’s held in a surplus room at the Marina Del Rey yacht club, where they serve Lafite Rothschild and the teacher is Laura Iosifescu.

“I think my sunset is tilting,” Harry says, and adds a few more dots of orange.

“It’s abstract,” Amir suggests.

Harry leans over and examines his canvas. “Well, yours looks alright.”

“That’s ‘cos I watched Laura when she did her horizon,” Amir says. “You were busy sexting my dad or whatever.”

Harry’s mouth falls open in tipsy offense. “I was _not_ ,” he says, laughing. “I was seeing if he wanted to go out to dinner!”

“Uh-huh, sure.”

On Monday, he sleeps in late after suhoor and wanders downstairs long after everyone’s gone about their day. He sees there’s at least fifty texts in the Tomlinson/Payne family group chat, all about basketball practice logistics. He’s in the kitchen working on college applications when his watch dings.

 _Sebastian Rockford is outside,_ the screen reads. _Do you want to let him in?_

“What the fuck,” Amir says aloud, his heart dropping like a stone.

“I’m sorry,” Siri says, “I didn’t get that.”

“No! Don’t let him in!”

“Okay. Entry denied.”

The physical doorbell starts ringing, then.

“What the FUCK,” Amir says, slamming his laptop shut and heading furiously into the hall.

He pulls open the front door a tiny bit: Sebastian is standing there on their step, looking morose. He’s wearing a salmon button-down shirt, and _Sperrys_. Amir is very relieved to find that the sight of him doesn’t elicit any emotion but annoyance.

“What are you doing here?” he snaps.

“I wanna talk,” Sebastian says, slipping his hands into his pockets.

“Well, I don’t,” Amir says, and starts to close the door — Sebastian stops it with a boat shoe.

“Please,” he begs. “Can you hear me out?”

“No! Go away!”

“I keep thinking about you —“

“That sounds like a personal problem,” Amir snaps, slamming the door on his foot. Sebastian winces, but doesn’t move.

He hears the thump of Mia’s crutches on the stairs behind him, then her saying, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing!” Amir yells back.

“Please, Meer,” Sebastian says. “Just listen to what I have to say.”

“What, your sorority girlfriend dumped you or something, and you come running back to me? The fuck do you think I am?”

“Hang on,” Mia says, thumping her way over to them. Amir steps back, and Sebastian uses this opportunity to push the door open and come inside. “This is the guy who dumped you? How fucking old is he, anyway?”

“Mia, stay out of this —“

“No,” she says coolly, “I don’t think I’m going to.” She turns to Sebastian. “How old are you?”

He glances around awkwardly. “I don’t think that’s —“

“He’s twenty-one,” Amir snaps.

Mia’s jaw hardens. “Oh, _is_ he?”

“Look, all due respect, this is between me and him,” Sebastian says to her, sounding deeply snotty.

She leans forward on her crutches. “All due respect,” she says in a low voice, “I didn’t sense a whole lot of respect just then, and it is my business when you’re fucking my underage brother!”

Sebastian looks right at Amir, pretending like she didn’t even speak. “Can we talk, please?”

“No!” he shouts. “I told you to leave!”

“I just want one minute.”

“You’re not gonna get it!”

“Hey,” Mia says, snapping her fingers in Sebastian’s face. “He asked you to leave. I’m gonna give you five seconds to do it.”

“Oh, and what are you gonna do?” Sebastian scoffs at her.

“Try me.”

“Why don’t you _try_ getting out of my business, you pain in the ass —“

It happens right in front of Amir’s face, but so quickly that it takes him a moment to process. Mia’s hand lets go of one of her crutches, her fist rockets out and smashes into Sebastian’s nose, and then he’s dropped to the floor, howling in disbelief while blood trickles from his nostrils.

Amir rounds on Mia. “What the fuck!”

“I’m sorry!” she shouts back, shaking her hand and nursing her knuckles. “I didn’t mean to do that!”

“What did you _mean_ to do?”

“Bitch!” Sebastian screams from the floor, and Amir wheels in anger and kicks him in the dick, which makes him howl in pain again.

Amir claps his hands to his mouth, shocked at himself. The front door opens, then. Louis is standing there, looking at his watch; he glances up, and then his eyes go wide as he takes in the scene in front of him. “The fuck is going on here?”

Sebastian staggers to his feet, pinching his bleeding nose.

“Who the fuck are you?” Louis demands of him. “Why are you bleedin’ in me foyer?”

“This is Amir’s ex,” Mia says.

Louis’ face hardens.

“Your daughter just punched me in the face!” Sebastian screams. “I should press charges, you psychos!”

“Oh, should you?” Louis scoffs. Amir is afraid of him right now in a way he’s never been before; his eyes are ice cold, and he’s vibrating with restrained fury. “Try it, I’ll nail you for statutory before you can fuckin’ blink. I promise you I am the last person alive you want to fuck with. Get off my property, _now_.”

Sebastian goes for the door, shooting a withering look at them as he goes. Louis aims a kick at his arse on his way out, then slams it on him and turns around, exhaling hard.

“Everyone alright?” he says.

“I’m fine,” Mia says. “Amir?”

He shrugs. He’s a little shaky and upset from the adrenaline, but otherwise fine. “Yeah.”

“How’s your hand?” Louis says to Mia.

“Hurts,” she says.

Louis takes it and starts examining it in the bright daylight pouring through the foyer windows. “This hurt?” he says, flexing her fingers backwards.

“A little.”

“Let’s go ice it.”

Mia and Amir gather around the breakfast nook table while Louis digs in the giant freezer for an ice pack. Amir fully exhales for the first time in a few minutes, then mouths _thank you_ at Mia, who smiles and shrugs at him.

“You really can’t go ‘round punching people in the face, Mims,” Louis calls.

“I didn’t mean to! But he had it coming!”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Louis says, coming over with the ice and pulling up a chair next to them, wrapping her hand in it. “You’re gonna get yourself in legal trouble, or break a bone in your hand, alright? You’re already injured, that’s the last thing we need.”

“Amir kicked him in the dick!” Mia exclaims.

Louis glances up at him, his eyes twinkling with pride. “Really?”

Amir shrugs. “We’re fasting, we’re testy.”

He laughs. “I dunno if that’s a defense that would hold up in a court of law.”

“Has anyone ever tried?” Amir counters.

“I just wasn’t thinking,” Mia says. “You really think I could’ve broken my hand?”

Louis glances down at it. “Does it feel broken?”

She makes a fist a few times in a row. “Not really.”

“We’ll see if it swells. Next time, use an elbow or a knee, alright? Or go open-handed, no shame in that.”

Amir laughs. “Or just don’t hit people.”

“I mean, ideally,” Louis says. “Uh… Amir… do you want me to tell security about this guy?"

Mia flicks her eyes over at him, keeping her face very still.

Amir, embarrassed, shakes his head. “I swear it’s not like that,” he mutters. “He won’t be back.”

“Alright.”

“He also didn’t start the physical stuff,” he adds. “He called Mia a pain in the ass and she decked him. That was it.”

Louis grins. “That’s my girl.”

“Jesus, don’t be proud of me! That’s not good! My therapist keeps saying I need to work on my impulse control...”

Louis doesn’t look surprised to hear the word therapist, so Amir figures she must have told him at some point. “You come by that honestly,” he says, and holds the ice pack to her hand with both of his own. “Keep this on there, alright? For at least an hour. But yeah, ah, the Tomlinsons aren’t known for our impulse control, sorry.”

“I think I’ve got alright impulse control,” Amir says.

Mia gives him a dubious look. “Amir.”

“I’m serious! Like, okay, maybe not _lately…_ ”

Louis chuckles.

“We’re your talented, fuck-up accident children,” Mia says to him, grinning.

“ _Surprise_ , not accident, surprise… I got pregnant, I didn’t stick my hand in a garbage disposal.” Louis adjusts the ice pack, and it crinkles. “Y’know, technically one of the twins was a surprise, too, since me and Payno only meant to have the one.”

Amir laughs. “That’s funny, I never thought of that before.”

“Yeah, well, there you are.”

Mia shifts in her chair, adjusting her hand under the ice pack. “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Sorry we’ve worried you lately.”

Louis breaks into a wry smile. “It’s alright. ‘S’my job to worry about you, and you wouldn’t be my kids if you didn’t have a bit of drama going on.”

“Yeah, but…” Mia gets up and limps a step over to him, leaning into him with her arms around his neck. “We’re sorry anyway.”

“Yeah,” Amir says, and follows suit, pulling them both into a hug. “Sorry, Dad.”

Louis reaches up for them, patting them on their backs and then hanging onto them tight.

After a long moment, they break apart. Amir, wanting to clear the emotional heaviness hanging in the air, says, “Hey… I wonder if it’s haram to punch people.”

Mia laughs. “Whatever, you kicked him in the dick!”

“But you made him bleed! That has to be worse.”

“How?” Mia challenges.

“‘Cos you fucked up his face, wouldn’t that be like, an act against God?”

“Not any more than kicking him in the dick is!”

Louis starts tapping at his watch. After a few moments, it begins ringing. He sets it between them on the Formica table. “Why don’t you ask your father,” he says. “Spare me having to fill him in on today’s escapades.”

About ten rings later, Zayn picks up. “Yo,” his voice says. He sounds crackly and faraway, like he does when he’s out on the boat.

“Dad,” Mia says, “hypothetically, is it bad to punch someone during Ramadan?”

“Is it bad to do _what_?”

“Punch someone. In the face.”

“Hypothetically?” Zayn repeats.

“Yeah.”

“Uh. I mean, I dunno if it’s specifically prohibited…”

“Dad,” Amir says, “you’re s’posed to be our spiritual mentor.”

“I haven’t got the entire thing memorized,” Zayn says, laughing. “Hang on…”

He’s quiet for a few moments, and they hear him tapping.

“He’s Googling it,” Mia whispers.

Louis snorts and takes her ice pack from her, getting up to go over to the fridge.

“I’m not _Googlin’_ it,” Zayn says.

“You’re typing,” she says.

“I have an app! Look, I mean, Yas, you’re meant to be purifying your spirit, so yeah, I’d say punching people’s not exactly on.”

Louis comes back with a fresh ice pack and presses it to Mia’s hand.

“What if I had a good reason?” she says.

There’s a stretch of silence.

“Is this a hypothetical or not,” Zayn’s crackly voice asks.

Louis clears his throat. “Amir’s ex just came by,” he says. “He got mouthy, apparently, and Mia popped him one.”

More silence.

“You lot are the limit, I swear,” Zayn says in exasperation, and the kids collapse in giggles.

 

*

 

Louis finds Mia a little later, sitting in the soft grass under the shade of an ash tree in their back garden, her crutches abandoned on either side of her. She’s engrossed in her watch, texting someone.

“Hey,” he says, and settles down next to her with a little wince as his back pops.

“Hi,” Mia says, looking up.

Louis inhales and clears his throat. “I know we had our little jokes about it, but, uh. Just hauling off and punching somebody’s sort of… y’know?”

“I know.”

“Everything alright with you?”

Mia’s pretty face flushes, turning pink and then red. Her eyes grow glassy, and fill with tears. ”No,” she says with difficulty.

He softens. “What’s wrong, sunshine?”

“I’m just…. y’know… pissed.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s like, I put all this pressure on myself, and for what? For a three year career, if I even heal? And what do I do after that? I haven’t even declared a major yet! I’ve been so focused on soccer, it’s all I’ve thought about…” She looks off into the distance, swiping tears off her cheeks. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Hey, we’ll figure it out. We will.”

“I only went to UCLA for the team,” Mia chokes out. “I didn’t even consider if they had programs I was interested in. I didn’t even study that hard in high school, you _know_ I didn’t! I had all those tutors, and help from Amir, and me and my friends always cheated on tests, and my teachers let me slide because I was an athlete, and I thought it was all worth it if I got to UCLA, but was it even? I’m so, like… angry at myself.”

“You’ve got no reason to be angry at yourself.”

“I do,” Mia scoffs, tears streaming down her red cheeks. “All this work and I’m just a dumb washed-up jock.”

Louis feels a terrible pang for her, then, because she sounds just like he did when he got pregnant with her and had to leave OTRA, publicly humiliated, professionally persona non grata, and on the outs with all the boys but Niall. _All that work and the band is just over. All that work and all I am is a stay-at-home dad who used to be somebody._

“You’re not _just_ anything,” he says. “You did theater, you liked theater —“

“Yeah, but I’m not a great actor, I’m just alright, and I can’t sing —“

“Mims… look, I know how you feel right now. But trust me when I say there’s opportunities out there for you that you’ve got no idea about yet.”

She sniffles. “Like what?”

“I dunno,” Louis says, laughing. “I don’t know what they are yet, either. But they’re out there.”

Mia shrugs helplessly.

“You and Amir both put too much pressure on yourselves,” Louis says. “Where’s that come from? I didn’t do that to you, did I? ‘Cos all I’ve ever really wanted is to have you happy.”

“No, it’s not you,” Mia says. “I mean, I got into soccer ‘cos of you, and I wanted you to help me make myself good, but I wanted to be good ‘cos —“ She visibly struggles for words. A gentle breeze whips the little pieces of her hair that her ponytail missed. “I dunno. I don’t know where it comes from. Just something inside me, I guess.”

“I just worry sometimes that you grew up too fast.”

“I wanted to, Dad,” she says. “I wanted to, like, be strong for you guys. You didn’t do anything to me. Don’t worry.”

“You never had to be strong for me, love, that wasn’t your job. Still isn’t your job.”

“But I wanted to anyway. Especially for you."

"You were," he says. 

She looks pleased to hear it. "Yeah?"

"'Course, Mims. You've always helped me so much, 'specially when it comes to your siblings. Even Sunday. I just never wanted you to feel like you couldn't spread your wings."

"I've never felt like that, I promise."

Louis moves closer to her, kneeling in the grass next to her legs, and starts to gingerly peel back the bandage on her knee. “Lemme take a look at this,” he murmurs. “See how you’re healin’ so far...”

Mia leans back against the trunk of the tree, sniffling again. “Okay.”

 

*

 

That evening, Liam and Louis head to the twins’ elementary school to watch them in a scrimmage, which is often as close as they can get to having a date night in any given week.

The kids all play sort of lazy — they’re tired out from their double-header games the weekend prior. Louis sits there courtside on a plastic chair, zoning out and staring at the hardwood as he listens to sneakers squeak and balls bounce.

Liam nudges him after a while. “Hey there.”

“Hey,” Louis says.

They watch as Max dribbles in for a layup, then misses hugely. He laughs at himself, shaking his head as he jogs away from the basket.

“Pizza tonight?” Louis says.

“Is it a pizza kind of night?”

“I’m thinking yes.”

“Yeah, I’m down. I like that place on Sepulveda.”

“Nah, they don’t put enough cheese,” Louis mutters. “What’s wrong with Papa John’s?”

Liam laughs. “You don’t want to go a bit more upscale?”

“Why bother? I like their garlic butter.”

“Papa John’s it is, then. You know what they need to do…”

“Build a KFC near us?” Louis supplies.

“Read my mind, Tommo.”

“Always do, lad.”

Patrick dribbles up and sinks a free throw; they cheer for him. He and Max are in different colored pinnies, playing for the opposite teams, but the easy smiles on their faces are nearly identical.

“So… Mims punched Amir’s ex in the face this afternoon,” Louis says, glancing over at Liam. “He came over to beg for Amir back, I guess, and he mouthed off to her, and she popped him one.”

Liam’s eyebrows shoot up. “Shit!”

“Yeah.”

“Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah, they’re fine, and I think I scared him off.”

Liam grins. “The Thuglinsons strike again.”

“She’s on a bit of a hair trigger, isn’t she?”

“Ah, she’s just protective.”

“I am sort of proud of her, honestly,” Louis admits. “Just getting worried there’s gonna come a day where she hits the wrong person.”

Liam stretches his arm out and settles his hand over the back of Louis’ neck, stroking his shoulder with his thumb. It feels nice. “Maybe she’ll mellow in her old age, like her daddy.”

“Oi, who’s mellowed?” Louis jokes.

They fall quiet, watching Max as he drives to the net, but he’s got a lot of defensive pressure and passes instead of shooting. Brian grabs it and sinks an easy basket.

“Maxy boy, such a team player,” Louis says with pride.

Liam smiles. “He’s good like that.”

“We taught him well.”

“And yeah, you’ve definitely mellowed.”

Louis smirks and bumps knees with him. “But not in every way,” he whispers.

Liam leans over and whispers sweetly into his ear, “No, not every way.”

 

*

 

The sun’s almost down when Amir pulls up to Jason’s gate.

He presses his fingers to the touchpad, and the gate slides smoothly open, silent in the way of incredibly expensive things.

Amir’s car rolls itself slowly down the oak-lined driveway. The palatial modern Hudson home, built with limestone, looms higher and higher over him as he gets closer.

He parks under some shade and walks to the front door, hands stuffed in his jeans pocket. He finds himself a bit nervous, which is funny. In their relationship, he's always had all the power.

They met on Amir’s first day of second grade — they were the only two new kids, so they got seated next to each other. Amir noticed a Vans decal on Jason’s backpack and said, “Do you skateboard?”

Then they met Evan and Ashton at recess that day, and they’ve been hanging out ever since.

Jason opens the front door before he even gets all the way up to it. Amir stops in his tracks, and they size each other up.

Jason’s face has mostly healed, but he’s got a scar on his upper lip now. Amir’s sort of jealous — it makes him look significantly cooler. Behind him, a maid walks by, carrying a handheld vacuum.

“Saw you open the gate,” Jason says, somewhat coolly.

He must have gotten a veneer. He’s not missing a tooth like Evan said.

“Yeah,” Amir says. “Thought I should come by.”

“Right. Yeah, come in.”

Jason leads him out back, to a patio that overlooks a koi pond surrounded by topiaries. Their house is like an art museum: everywhere you turn, there’s something you’re meant to look at. It’s exhausting as a hangout spot.

When they sit, Jason pulls a cigarette from his pocket and lights it, which is surprising to Amir. Jason must mistake the surprise for interest, because he offers him the pack.

“Nah, I’m good,” Amir says. He wouldn’t dare pick up cigs — his dads would smell it from a mile away, and he’d never hear the end of it.

Jason blows out smoke. “Haven’t heard from you,” he says, somewhat accusatory.

“Haven’t exactly wanted to reach out, man.”

“Interesting,” Jason says, looking out over the koi pond.

Anger flares in Amir’s throat. “Can you blame me? You almost got us killed.”

His jaw tightens. “It was a fucking accident.”

“Running from the cops is an _accident_? On what planet?”

Amir sees none of the pathetic act that Evan told him about. Maybe Jason’s had more time to process, now, or maybe he’s just reacting differently to Amir. There’s always been a harder edge to their side of the friendship — while Evan is a sweet, well-meaning fuck-up, a surfer boy who just wants everybody to have good vibes, Jason and Amir share a grasping neediness, a craving for status.

“I wasn’t running,” Jason snaps. “They started chasing me, I got freaked out, and then I couldn’t handle the car. I was trying to pull over, but they were running me off the fucking road.”

“Please, save it for the jury.”

“Fuck you!”

“I’ve got no fucking interest in dying for you!” Amir shouts, leaning forward. Jason refuses to look at him. “You understand that? You don’t get to kill me ‘cos of your fucking shrimpdick ego!”

“You’re such a drama queen,” Jason scoffs. “I’m sure you and Evan just sit around now and talk about what a shithead I am.”

“Big fuckin’ ego on you, thinking we’ve got nothing better to talk about.”

“Ri-ight… so, you two fucking yet?”

Amir’s entire face and chest flush. “Fuck you.”

“So that’s a yes, then.”

“ _Fuck_ you! Poor little rich boy!”

Jason blows smoke at him. “And you, poor little less rich boy,” he sneers. “Poor little famous boy. ‘Ooh, my daddies fucked around on each other, so I screw emotionally unavailable guys and then act surprised when they don’t treat me well.’ Make sure Evan knows you’re just going to get bored with him after two weeks, so he can plan accordingly.”

Amir gets to his feet, shaking with anger. “Fuck you,” he spits.

Jason gets up, too, tossing his cigarette aside. “Good! Great! You’re just the latest person to push me away, so don’t think you’re special or anything! For once, you’re not!”

“What’s your fucking _problem_?”

“Right now, you!”

Amir shoves him. Jason shoves him back. Suddenly they’re brawling, fighting without hitting each other, falling to the patio and wrestling like dumb kids.

Jason is taller, though, and he quickly tires Amir out. Amir crawls away across the cold stone, exhausted from the adrenaline. He rests his back against the railing and stares at Jason, who’s lying on his side and breathing heavily, eyes blazing. Amir notices for the first time the house arrest bracelet around his ankle.

“Were we ever actually friends?” Amir says with difficulty. “Did you ever give a shit about me? Or were you thinking this nasty shit about me behind my back for the last ten years?”

His throat and chest ache as he says it. Jason keeps breathing hard, and breaks eye contact.

“No,” he mutters. “But you’ve been so fucking self absorbed lately...”

“So you try to _kill_ me?”

Jason, to his surprise, starts to laugh. After a moment, Amir laughs too.

“No,” he says. “I swear, the thing with the car, it was just, like… I don’t even know. It happened so fast.”

Amir exhales. “You fucked up,” he says. “You did a shitty thing to us.”

“I know.”

“Then why didn’t you text me like, hey, sorry?”

“I didn’t have my watch or anything ‘til last week, you know that.”

“Still,” Amir says. “You could’ve told me something through Evan.”

Jason shrugs. “I know how you get,” he says.

“How I _get_?”

“Pissy? Mean?”

“I’m not _mean_. You’re fucking crazy, man. You’re my friend, I was confused, I was worried about you. And you didn’t even give a fuck how I was, did you?”

“I did, actually,” Jason says. “I asked Evan about you.”

“Alright, whatever.”

“Besides, what even happened to you? You bumped your head a little and got off scot-free.”

“ _I_ didn’t do anything wrong!” Amir shouts back. “You guys did!”

“Fine, whatever!”

They lapse into resentful silence, then. Jason breaks it by saying, “Did you get your subpoena?”

“For the deposition? Yeah.”

It had come to their front door a few days ago, via a bike messenger. “YOU ARE COMMANDED to appear and testify,” it began. Amir found the phrasing somewhat overwrought.

“What’s it for?” he says.

“For the reckless endangerment charge,” Jason says. “My lawyers want them to drop it. I’m sure they’ll be in touch with you soon.”

“I don’t have anything useful, man… I was unconscious.”

“I know,” Jason says. “I told them that, they didn’t listen.”

Amir studies him. “How aren’t you more worried about what’s going to happen with all this?”

A slow, humorless smile spreads across Jason’ face. “Who says I’m not worried?”

 

*

 

When Amir gets home, everyone is in the dining room, tearing into boxes of Papa John’s.

“Hey,” they chorus when he walks in the door.

He waves and hangs back, waiting for the chaos to subside. On one end of the table, the twins are having a fight over who gets the biggest piece of the meat lover’s pizza, which Liam defuses by taking it for himself. At the other end, Mia is telling Sunday about the Sebastian run-in with such passionate theatrics that she’s using her crutches as props and almost knocks her glass of water over. Sunday’s laughing; Mia’s always trying to make her laugh.

Amir lifts his wrist to glance at the Rolex.

“We’re good,” Mia calls over to him. “It’s eight twenty.”

“Thank fuck,” he says in relief. The pizza smells so good, he’s got drool flooding into his mouth.

“How was Jason’s?” Louis says to him. He’d given Amir special dispensation from his grounding to go over there, because Amir’s therapist said the other day that it might be good for them to clear the air.

Amir clears his throat. “Weird,” he says. “But we talked things out.”

“Good.”

Max and Patrick glance up.

“Is Jason going to jail?” Patrick says.

Amir snorts. “I don’t think so, little man.”

Patrick looks disappointed. “It’d be cool to know someone in jail.”

Liam laughs. “Why?”

“Just ‘cos.”

“Paddy’s got business on the inside he needs taken care of,” Louis says, tousling Patrick’s hair as he takes a seat.

“Wait, you saw Jason?” Sunday says.

“Yeah,” Amir says, settling down in the seat next to her.

“Is he okay?”

 Amir blinks at her.

“I’m just curious,” she adds.

“Yeah, he’s fine,” he says. “A little deranged, but he’s fine. Can I get a slice of cheese?”

Liam passes him the box of plain cheese. The conversation shifts to general mundanities, and Amir tunes it out as he eats his pizza.

“How’s the hand, Rocky?” Liam says to Mia.

She laughs and flexes it. “I think I’m square, coach.”

Louis chuckles, then catches Amir’s eye. “Nice havin’ you all home,” he says.

Amir realizes with a pang that by this time next year, probably only the twins will still be here. He can tell from the expression on Louis’ face that he’s thinking the same thing.

“Yeah,” he says. “It is.”

 

MANHATTAN, FEBRUARY 26, 2035

Juilliard’s music auditions, according to the email they received, are held in one of the main auditoriums for the sake of acoustics.

So that's where the three of them find themselves on a rainy Monday in Manhattan, after a long and anxious cab ride over from their hotel — standing in the wings of Paul Recital Hall, waiting for Amir’s name to be called.

The baby grand piano that the school has provided him sits lonely on the stage, dwarfed by the massive organ pipes rising up behind it like stalagmites. The waffled dark wood ceiling and walls make Louis feel like he’s inside of a violin.

In the front row, five judges sit waiting, tablets in their laps. They’re conversing quietly with each other before they call Amir up.

Amir turns to Louis and Zayn, his face pale. “Um,” he says, “what if I reschedule? ‘Cos I think I’m sick —”

“No, no,” Louis and Zayn chorus, holding him steady as he tries to push past them.

Zayn pats Amir on the cheek. “Breathe,” he reminds him. “In for fifteen, out for ten.”

But instead of breathing, Amir says wildly: “What if I forget how to play? What if I sit down and I throw up on the keyboard?”

“Hey,” Louis says, “have you _ever_ done that? Ever before in your life?”

He exhales. “No…”

“Then why would you do it now?”

“My palms are so sweaty —“

“You’ve been practicing these pieces every day for months,” Louis reminds him.

Amir is still a deer in headlights, his amber eyes wide and glassy. He looks younger today than he has lately, with his face clean-shaven and his hair cut boyishly short, but the tuxedo helps him seem mature. “I know,” he says, his voice hitching.

Zayn takes him hard by the shoulders. “You’re gonna go sit down,” he says, “and you’re gonna stop being scared the second you do. And then you’re gonna blow ‘em away. Alright? Picture that in your head.”

Amir squeezes his eyes shut and blows out a breath. “Okay.”

“You’re gonna be great,” Louis says. “We’ll be watching.”

“Okay —“

A silvery voice rings out from one of the judges in the audience: “Amir Tomlinson-Malik? We’re ready for you now, if you’d like to begin.”

Amir’s face drops.

“You’ve got this,” Zayn whispers. “Go.”

“But —“

“ _Go_.”

He exhales again, smooths his hands down over his jacket, then turns and heads up the stairs and across the stage.

They both watch raptly, holding their breath. Amir settles down onto the bench.

“Hold on one moment,” the judge who spoke earlier says. She lifts a lazy hand in the air. “Professor Owens is on the wrong section of his evaluations, excuse us.”

A guy who Louis assumes is Owens chuckles to himself. “This is what happens when you try to make a doddering old man go digital,” he says, tapping at his tablet.

Amir’s back is ramrod straight. Louis telepathically shouts at him to soften his hands and relax his neck.

Zayn leans over and whispers in his ear, “You thinkin’ about what I’m thinkin’ about, right now?”

“Yeah,” Louis murmurs, smiling. “Audition day.”

“Crazy that was twenty-five years ago.”

“I know…”

“And he’s the same age now as we were then.”

Louis gets a little dizzy even contemplating this. “Shit, you’re right.”

“Wanna go grab our seats?”

They creep out into the aisle, trying to walk as softly as possible, but still catching the eye of one of the judges, who smiles at them. They sit a few rows back, far away enough to not be a distraction, but close enough that Amir can catch their eye if he needs to.

Zayn settles in next to Louis, stretching his arm out across the back of his chair, then squeezing his shoulder. Louis pats him on the thigh. He’s so nervy he can barely make the spit to swallow.

“Fingers crossed,” he whispers.

Zayn shows him his hand — they already are.

“You may begin,” says the judge.

Amir looks down into the audience, gives her a restrained little nod, then turns to the piano. Louis can see his back shift as he takes in a deep breath, and then he starts to play.


End file.
